


Swords and Shields are Shelters

by barbiehighheels



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst and Humor, F/M, Fluff, Original Character - Freeform, PWP, RST, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Traveling, UST, bicker/banter, lemme show yall how i repair the asoiaf holes in my heart, no like, suuuuuper slow burn, thanks for the life ruiners GRRM
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2017-12-21 17:45:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 24
Words: 57,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barbiehighheels/pseuds/barbiehighheels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa Stark travels to the Quiet Isles and soon discovers that being a pawn in play for the game of thrones will draw some unexpected allies. Sansa and the Hound are tasked with traveling through the faraway mysterious Slaver's Bay to meet Daenerys Targaryan, the Dragon Queen, and swear fealty before she takes the Iron Throne through fire and blood.</p><p>HOLD UP Y'ALL: this is a golldang future fic and if you haven't read up to ADWD, plz don't let my plot-progression grabby hands ruin it all for u. (unless you're into that in which case *pats seat* come sit by me) </p><p>this is my very real attempt of a canon-compliant interpretation of potential TWOW events as told through a self-indulgent lens of SHAMELESS. SANSAN. SMUFF</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He remembers riding up to Winterfell and seeing them all lined up in a row, the somber Starks, one much like the next. 

Except for _her_. 

It was her red hair that first set her apart from the rest of her siblings, and then her beauty. Her hair was brighter even than the autumnal auburn of her mother’s hair, which was no comparison for the spun copper of _hers_. She had smiled when the boy prince looked down at her from his steed. She had tittered nervously on her heels and blushed. To him, she had looked like some sort of exotic creature caged in this dark and cold castle. Like some sort of beautiful little bird.

Sandor hadn’t expected himself to react this way to seeing some stupid little girl, but she was beautiful in a way that belied her years, and innocent in a way he hadn’t _seen_ in years. He stared at her unabashedly from the slit in his visor, and noticed when her eyes landed on his snarling dog’s helm and she looked away quickly, frightened. He was still staring when one of her wolf brothers, nearly indistinguishable from any of the others, leaned down to whisper something to her, and her eyes widened, and she stole a glance back at Sandor. _She must’ve just learned the horror to expect of my face_ , he thought, before looking away finally and following the rest of the mounted men to the stables to unhorse.

Later, when he had learned of the girl’s betrothal to Joffrey, he felt a flame rip through him quickly, nearly a pain, and certainly a pang. _Stupid dog,_ he’d reminded himself hatefully. _At least she’ll be near…_ he had thought _._

It seemed leagues ago. Now, he dug his shovel into the ground and hefted up a chunk of dirt, tossing it out. He huffed and did it again. And again.

When he’d heard of the little bird marrying the Imp, he’d gnashed his teeth that sleepless night, tossing and turning with the thought of her lily-white thighs wrapped around Tyrion’s twisted torso; an image that was keeping him agonized and awake, repeating in a purgatorial endless fashion as he tried in vain to die, disgraced, disfigured, and despondent on the banks of the Trident.

Sandor tossed the spade down and reached for the water he kept in a flask on his hip. With a cursory glance to make sure he was unseen, he lowered his cowl. He gulped a few quick swallows of water and let it run down his chin. Although the sun was high in the sky and shining brightly, there was a distinct chill in the air. _Winter is coming_ , he reminded himself.

Wincing, he picked up the shovel again, and with the effort of the agonizingly penitent, redoubled his speed digging the grave he was standing in. _These are all my graves,_ he thought. _I dig a new grave for the Hound every day and die at each sundown. And the nights are the hells as I’m haunted with her. The mornings I’m reborn._

Sandor scoffed out loud and considered that maybe he had spent too much time at the Quiet Isle.

The most excitement that occurred during his work that day was when he spotted four riders coming up carefully through the marshes, stepping carefully through the sodden grasses and mud. One of them was in Brother’s garb and leading them. And one of them was a woman, or maybe a girl, significantly smaller than the others, and had small and delicate shoulders under the cloak. Sandor wildly imagined it was his little bird, but scornfully dismissed the thought when he saw the brown hair coming out from under the hood that was obscuring the girl’s face.   _Probably some unfortunate, unwed, pregnant wench,_ he mused.         

He watched them dismount, and noticed the biggest of the men help the girl down, hands about her waist and lifting her as if she weight no more than a child. Scowling, Sandor set back to his work.

That night Sandor left his quarters to visit the Stranger in the stables. The moon and stars were obscured by leaden clouds threatening rain and he quickened his pace, half-jogging and half-limping to the barn housing Stranger.

Once inside, he shook the rain off himself as best he could, and grit his teeth from chattering. He limped up to Stranger. Or Driftwood, or whatever it was the religious fools had taken to calling him. The horse still bowed to no man but Sandor, who now fed him and set to brushing out his mane, as none of the other men could come near enough to the animal to complete the task. Well, not without losing a few fingertips.

The rain was falling in earnest, the sounds sheeting the roof of the barn indecorously, and the faraway thunder rumbled in response.

He let his thoughts wander away from him, and as they inevitably insisted, as if to pour salt on wounds, they always cruelly wandered back to _her_. 

She had fled without a trace, they’d said. They said that she and the Imp had conspired to murder Joffrey (for which he did not blame her, certainly not after what the wretched boy put her through) and that a fool had led her out of King’s Landing.   _She hadn’t run with me when I’d offered_ , Sandor bitterly reminded himself, despite knowing that she’d been married to the Imp and had more urgent cause to flee. No one knew where she was. She could be as far as the slaver’s lands. She could be in Pentos, Braavos, Tyrosh, _anywhere_ …

A heavy wind blew in suddenly as the door opened and someone slammed it shut.

 _Or she could be right here_ , he ludicrously thought, as he stared at Sansa Stark standing and dripping wet before him, wringing out her hair.

He felt an absurd fleeting panic, first, while he was staring at her.  Then the panic retreated and he remembered his face was covered. And at that point he wondered why he thought there was even reason to panic. _Because you’re dead, Hound,_  he reminded himself.

“Excuse me, Brother.” She gave a small curtsy. Always remembering her courtesies. “I…I wanted to get out of the rain,” she explained, and shook some water from her skirts.

 _What was she doing out there in the first place_? Sandor wondered.

Sandor gave a quick nod, and turned back to brush Stranger, who scuffed the ground with his hooves impatiently.  He paused and stole a glance back at the girl, who was shivering and had wrapped her arms around herself. The water made the fabric of her dress cling to her body and illuminated the previously obscured curves when he saw her earlier that day. And there were so many curves. Sandor cursed internally, thankful for the robes obscuring his damnable hardness. He reached for a horse blanket thrown over the stall, and beat some of the dust and hay off of it. Sansa turned and watched him. Sandor took three wide steps towards her and thrust the blanket in her face, unspeaking.

Sansa looked at the hand offering the blanket. “Thank you,” she said as she wrapped it around herself. She narrowed her eyes slightly, staring into Sandor’s darkened gaze under the cowl and hood. _Shit_.

He turned jerkily and returned to Stranger. He entered the stall and faced Stranger for a moment, trying to slow his breathing. He looked up and saw Sansa standing in front of the stall, as near as she wanted to get to Stranger’s mouth. _Shit._

“I once knew a man, almost as big as you,” she told him from outside the stall, still holding the blanket around her shoulders. “He even had a horse just like this one- black as midnight, and mean as well.” She gestured towards Stranger, but her hand retreated quickly when the horse snapped at her.  Sandor stood silently, unmoving, and unsure of how to react.

He took a step closer to the girl. _To see the blue of her eyes_ , he thought _. If they are blue as I remember._

They were. 

She stared at him, and continued, unsure of herself. “He…wasn’t a knight, but taught me that even men who call themselves as such are typically no true knights.” She drew the blanket closer around her shoulders.

“He taught me that knights are for killing.” Her voice shook. “He was right on that.”

 _Seven hells_ , he thought. _She’s crying_.

She inhaled shakily. The threat of tears lingered in her eyes.  “He told me that a hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And I’m so _sick_ of being lied to.”

No longer a threat, the fulfilled promise of tears slipped down her cheeks and she was weeping in earnest. “Is it you?” she asked Sandor. 

“Please tell me it’s you,” she continued through her tears, “Because if it isn’t you, then it means he’s dead, the Hound is really dead and for some reason that makes me feel truly alone.” She choked out the last bit.

Sandor clenched his fists at his side. He wanted to rush to her and kiss her, scream at her, run away with her, anything to make her stop crying. He wanted to rip their clothes off and tumble into the hay. He wanted to see her come. He wanted to see her smile again. He wanted to rip a bloody swath through any unfortunate souls who got in their way. 

Instead, he stood rooted to the spot and said nothing and let his fists unclench.  He stared at her crying and didn’t comfort her. He felt cruel. Although the gods knew he had committed plenty of other acts of violence in his lifetime that would be considered crueler, he had never felt more low-down that standing still in front of the little bird crying. Crying for the dead Hound.

She buried her face in her hands and took a few deep breaths. She quieted her crying and when she looked up, wiped the tears from her face. She sniffled. She looked into Sandor’s face once again.

“I’m very sorry. I’ve just been notified of a…friend’s death. Please excuse my grieving. Here is your blanket. Thank you, Brother.” She said, and held it out to Sandor. He took it from her. 

She curtsied, and walked away, towards the stable doors from which she had entered. 

It was as if the girl had erased every scrap of rationality that Sandor had eked out while serving on the Quiet Isles. He forgot the peace he pretended to have and forgot his vows. In that instant as she walked away, he suddenly missed bloodshed and the light that goes out in a man’s eyes when you take his life. He missed the clanging of steel on steel, the swords swinging heavily through tendon and bone and flesh, ripping people apart. In that instant he missed being a monster. He missed being on a battlefield, where he was ten times the man of any opponent. He missed war, where he felt whole. As soon as he left the battlefield and removed his helm, he became disfigured again. An imperfect broken man, scarred and snarling, unable to deal with life properly.

Shit.

Sandor tore out of the stall and reached Sansa before she was about to return to the rain. He grabbed her by her upper arm and yanked her to face him. He ripped his hood off, and pulled the cowl off his face. He knew he was holding her too hard and could be bruising the poor girl, but he didn’t care. She was here. She was solid. And she had just been sobbing for him. He stared at her unforgivingly, before kissing her hard, with his large hands on either side of her face.

“Is this the face you wanted, girl?” he croaked, and she gasped for breath when his lips left hers.

Her face crumpled again and she nodded, mutely, through her tears, before collapsing into his arms. Sandor held her roughly, stymied by her reaction and unsure if she was happy or distraught. She buried her face into his chest and cried.

“They told me you were dead and showed me your grave and Joffrey is dead and Littlefinger is my father and everyone lies and I’m just a pawn and no one knows where Tyrion is and sometimes he kisses me—“ she rambled into his chest.

“Hold, girl, you’re not making any bit of sense. The imp kisses you?” He asked her, grabbing her chin to force her to look at him.

“No, Littlefinger,” she whispered. Sandor’s grip tightened on her.

“Why is your hair brown?” he asked her, now noticing now that the roots were growing red. He grabbed a damp handful and inspected it.

“I’ve been in hiding as Alayne Stone, Littlefinger’s bastard daughter. My red hair…it would be too recognizable as Tully,” she answered. “But the dye is Tyroshi, and with the ports closed from the war, I’ve run out.”

Sandor hadn’t let go of her and hoped she didn’t mind.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“One of the Vale’s bannermen was becoming too suspicious of me. He doesn’t believe that Littlefinger should be the protector of the Vale since Lysa died. He began to question me and the risk became too great so Littlefinger sent me away. To be in hiding as a _septa_.” She finished scornfully. She looked up at him.

“Why are you here? Why do they say the Hound is dead?” she asked.

“I’m here for the same reason you are, little bird. Hiding from who I am.”

“And…the Saltpans?” she asked tremulously.

Sandor sneered at her suddenly and released his grip. “You suspected I was responsible for that and still rushed to my arms? You are a _stupid_ girl.”

Sansa’s mouth down-turned. “You wouldn’t hurt me. The Elder Brother told us that you were innocent of the Saltpan massacre.”

“Then why ask?”

“I wanted to hear it from you.”

Sandor stared a long moment at her before pulling his hood back up. 

“Still afraid of me, little bird?”

She set her jaw and stared at him, which she had never been able to do before. “No,” she declared.

Sandor grabbed her shoulders and shoved her against a rough-hewn wooden rafter. She winced but still stared at him. He raised his hands to either side of her face. _She is so small_ , he thought, and noticed that his hands could almost encompass her head. He let them trail down to her shoulders, let one linger at her slender white throat. He squeezed.

“Are you frightened now, little bird?” Sandor rasped. She nodded, eyes widened.

He stood up. The rain had slacked and was a soft, whispery drizzle outside the dimly lit barn.

“Run to your quarters, girl,” he growled. 

He turned from her and again walked to Stranger. He didn’t want to see the look of defeat on her face. He could, however, hear the choked cry she let out as she fled the stables. _Good_. 

Sandor knew that the little bird needed to stay far from him. When he had held her, he wanted her badly. He was broken, a man untethered and to want something that badly could only lead to chaos. She’d asked him about the Saltpans, trusting in him. Believing him to be good. She had no idea what atrocities he’d committed in the past. Sandor knew, now, to stay from her.

Falling in love wasn’t the stuff of songs and stories. Love is a bitter, choking poison that clouds your thoughts. It’s a malicious undertow pulling you down beneath the sea.  It made him want to throw her down and fuck her until she screamed. It made him remember who the Hound was, full of bloodlust and violence. It wasn’t safe for her.

He stepped out of the barn into the cool night air, smelling of earthen dampness and the metallic tang aftertaste of a heavy rain, air thick with minerals. He began to limp towards his cabin.

He’d pack his things. He’d be gone by morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, liiiiiike...I actually started to wrote this two years ago. I just dug it up because I've been reading all your Sansan's and falling in love all over again. <3
> 
> This is super rough, I'm sorry!


	2. Chapter 2

A candle flickered feebly in his dark and cramped quarters while he hurriedly filled a burlap sack with his clothing. He wished he hadn’t let them bury the sword he’d come to the Isles with, but his weapons had been buried with the rest of his former life as the Hound. He felt defenseless.

He thought back to when he had been around the girl at King’s Landing, and how rough he’d been. It was as if he was worried his face would betray his feelings to the girl and put on his meanest face in front of her. He remembered crying when he told her of Gregor and the true nature of who gave him the scars. Sandor winced with the memory. He thought of their last night when he had stolen a song from her, and wanted to steal much more. A heated rush of shame crept up his neck as he recalled drunkenly putting a knife to her throat. _Not safe around you_ , a voice assured.

He turned, swinging the pack over his shoulder, and made a move to blow the candle out when he noticed the figure in the doorway. It was the Elder Brother, standing quietly and regarding him with narrowed eyes, looking all of a hardened stern warlord and none of a man of the cloth.  He simply stared at Sandor, making him feel uneasy, but he did not speak.  Sandor cleared his throat, and spoke first.

“I’m leaving.”

The Elder Brother entered and sat at Sandor’s small desk. “Well, yes, I had gathered as much.” He reached for Sandor’s flagon on his desk, and turned to Sandor. “Wine?” When the Elder brother turned to pour, he found that it was water.  “Water, I suppose?”

Sandor nodded and watched as the Elder Brother poured him a cup.

“You know, her guardians are leaving her tonight.”

“What a coincidence, I should be going too. Perhaps we can share the road. Tell ribald tales around a bleeding campfire,” Sandor replied harshly.

The Elder Brother ignored him, and picked a fly out of his cup, wiping it on the top of Sandor’s desk. He turned to face Sandor where he stood, the pack still on his shoulder. The candlelight flickering made the Elder Brother’s face look ruddier than usual, coarsened by fire.

“What kind of man runs from a little girl?”

Sandor sneered. “I am not running.” 

“You’re what, then?” The Elder Brother countered. “Taking a holiday, perhaps?”

“You don’t understand,” Sandor rasped. 

“Love is cruel, Sandor. It can make a powerful man feel weak. It can make large men feel small.”

Infuriated, Sandor wanted to press a blade to the other man’s neck and ask him at swordpoint what he, _a man of the cloth_ , knew of love.

“I wasn’t always a sworn brother,” he said, as if reading Sandor’s thoughts. “First I was a man.” He paused and took a sip of the water. “And thus, have tasted love's bitterness firsthand.”

Sandor nodded. “I won’t keep my vows around her. I can’t think around her. I need to leave. It’s the safest option,” Sandor said, and sat on the edge of his bed, finally letting his pack drop. The Elder Brother watched, speaking once Sandor sat down.

“You took no true vows, Sandor, so I can’t and won’t keep you here—but there are people that know not only who the girl truly is, but where she is.” He drew his brow downwards in a frown before finishing. “And it’s a matter of your conscience. Do you truly believe that Petyr Baelish would willingly release his pretty captive unless there was profit to be had in his grasping hands? Do you think she’s safe here?” 

Sandor scowled.

“Do you leave to protect her from yourself, knowing there could be worse out there coming for her? Or do you remain, and stay your strength, and protect her from what’s to come?” The Elder Brother finished, before he drained the last of water from his cup and set it back down with a loud thud and a satisfied sigh. He stood and cracked his back.

“I’ll leave the decision to you, and hope that I see you to break your fast with us in the morning. But I’m going to use the rest of tonight’s hours to sleep. I’m too old for this.” He gave a curt nod to Sandor and then he was gone.

Sandor sat on his bed until the sun came up. 


	3. Chapter 3

When he limped into the dining hall, he scanned the room for her. Not seeing her, he chose a seat by himself at the end of a table, nearest to the door. He broke his fast on boiled eggs and mealy porridge. He mistakenly made eye contact with the Elder Brother across the hall, who smiled at him slightly, nearly smirking. _Smug bastard_ , Sandor thought, as he scowled into his meal.

That day, during his digging, he saw them depart.  Sansa saw them off, wearing a dark brown dress, demurely cut to cover her curves. Sandor saw the big man that had helped her off the horse, whom she hugged fiercely. He watched the man clamp a hand on her shoulder and lean in to tell her something. The way her shoulders were held rigidly made him think that she was upset. He turned and began digging again, as if he were punishing the ground. When he looked up again they were all gone.

That night Sandor had returned to his room rather than dining with the rest of the Quiet Isle’s inhabitants. The silence that proliferated their meals, punctuated only by the clink of tines on plates and the chewing and swallowing of foods rather than speech, was not something he wanted to subject himself to that evening.  He laid on his back in his bed, stretching his sore leg out and bending it up again, testing the mobility.

A knock at the door made him sit up. He strode to the door and gruffly asked from the closed side, “Who’s there?" 

“It’s me,” The Elder Brother replied.

Half-relieved and half-disappointed, Sandor swing the door open and bid the brother entrance. Sandor noticed a long and lumpy package that he held behind his back.

“If you’ve come to kill me, Brother,” Sandor said, “It helps to unwrap the sword first. _Then_ you stick me in the gut.”

The Elder Brother held the package out to him.

“Oh, shall I show you how?” Sandor asked sarcastically.

“Open it.” The Elder Brother commanded.

Sandor unwrapped the burlap covering and saw a familiar sword.

“This is _mine._ ”

“Yes. You must think me mad to bury good steel. We may be men of the sept, but there is still a war going on outside these Isles.”

“I’m done fighting in wars,” Sandor said through gritted teeth.

“Yes, but your decision to remain leads me to believe that you wish to protect Sansa. Without a sword, what would you use to defend the girl? Your shovel, perhaps?”

Sandor set his mouth in a hard line but said nothing.

“There is more similarity between you two than you might think. You are both running from your identities and the people who wish to have your heads because of it. You are both the last of your name. The last of your kind.” The Elder Brother finished softly, “There is no place for either of you in this world.”

Sandor stared at the light of the candle until his eyes burned and he had to look away. He stared at the floor, his vision swimming with the phantom flames stained on his eyes.

“I have a mission for you,” The Elder Brother told him gently. “The girl is welcome to stay as a guest for a time, but I fear for the sanctity of the Quiet Isle should the Lannisters find her location. They think her to be hiding the Imp.”

“Where, under her skirts?” Sandor scoffed. 

Ignoring the remark, the Elder Brother continued, “You will take her. You will take this sword. And you will go.”

“And where would you have us go? What place is safe for the last of their kind from being hunted, stuffed, and mounted?” Sandor asked pointedly.

“There is a lord in Pentos who has a penchant, somewhat, for lords in exile. If he takes you, you’d sail with the girl through the Bay of Crabs and across the Narrow Sea with a ship we’ve chartered to take missionaries to the Free Cities.”

“ _If_ he takes us?” Sandor asked.

“We’ve sent word already to see if he’s interested.”

“And if he isn’t?”

“If he takes you, you’ll be brought before the child Queen in Meereen to swear fealty. You and the girl.”

“If you think that I’m going to bend the knee to some slave city little Queen bitch, you are-“

“She’s the last Targaryen. She is the true heir to the Iron Throne. She has plans to take back the Seven Kingdoms.”

"Plans," Sandor scoffed. “Why would we go along with the  _plans_ of a little girl?” 

“Brother, the 'little girl' has three dragons," The Elder Brother spoke plainly. Sandor felt his face go slack as he stared at the other man in stark disbelief.

The Elder Brother sighed, and cleared his throat before looking up at Sandor. "Do you want to see Lady Sansa returned to her lands? Do you want to see her wreak revenge on those who destroyed her family? Do you want to march back into King’s Landing behind the true queen, with the Stark girl at your side, and an army at your back? Do you wish, in the new world, to be a noble of the highest order?”

Sandor was clutching the pommel of the sword in his lap, stirred by the words. He felt manipulated, as if the Elder Brother knew to speak of the girl to him and to bring him to rage.

“And if this scheme should fail? Should the new queen deny us?” Sandor growled.

The Elder Brother shrugged, setting his heavy jaw. His small eyes glittered in the candlelight. “We should find that answer when the time comes, shall we not?”

“Why do you have a hand in this? How do you have these connections?”

The Elder Brother held his palms open and smiled slightly. “The whisperings of spiders reaches far.”  _Seven hells_ , Sandor thought. _Varys_.

“So what say you, Sandor?”

“I say get out.”

The Elder Brother nodded and stood. “You’ll have until we hear word from Lord Illyrio in Pentos to decide of your actions.”

“What have you told the girl?” Sandor asked.

The Elder Brother moved towards the door and shrugged. “Nothing. If you wish her to know, you tell her.”

Sandor scowled as his door shut closed. He walked back towards his bed and laid, swinging his legs up. He fell asleep fully-clothed, imagining how to have this conversation with Sansa without upsetting her too much. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't canon-checked these so if you guys spot some stuff regarding inaccuracy, feel free to let me know! I wrote this for me, because it was stuck in my head and at that point (before the tv show?), Sansan wasn't quite the institution it is today. If you guys end up liking this as much as I did, I'd be flabbergasted!


	4. Chapter 4

Something about the way she was sitting had him agonized. Sandor felt as though the girl could slay him with just the simplicity with which she sat. She could end his life, right now, with just the slight cross of her ankles, or the way she had her hands clasped in her lap.

She was seated graveside, currently, letting her legs into the grave itself while she perched demurely at its grassy edge. Her back was straight, and the wind was ruffling her loose hair, now more russet-colored than before, and with the front pieces braided back away from her face.  She was staring at Sandor, her mouth slightly agape.

“But…why _me_?” she asked him finally.

“You are the eldest Stark of Winterfell. Your brother held the North before his death, and any enemy of the usurper’s to the Iron Throne is an ally to the dragon queen. If you, on behalf of the Starks, pledge fealty to the new queen, you bring your bannermen. You have the potential to give her the North.”

Sansa looked down at her lap and wrung her hands together. Sandor shoved his spade into the earth and leaned on the handle, trying to gauge her reaction.

“And what makes them believe that I’d pledge fealty to a _Targaryen_?” Her voice betrayed her disdain.

“She’s the last one, little bird.” _Like us_ , he could have added.

“It doesn’t matter. Her blood is tainted,” Sansa shot back. “ _Her_ father was the Mad King who murdered my father’s brother and their father in cold blood.”

“So you think that an individual should stand accused for the acts of their family members?” Sandor asked her.

“Of course.” Sansa set her jaw. “The house in question is held accountable.”

“So you think Joffrey was justified in having you stripped and beaten in front of half the court for your brother’s war you took no part in?” he asked her.

Her eyes turned down in shame, though whether it was for her faulty logic or the shame of remembering the trauma, he did not know.

“Also following that mind,” Sandor continued, “Do you think me deserving of a punishment for what my own brother did to my face? Am I the monster my brother is?”

Sansa’s eyes shot to his face, horrified, and scared at his scars.

“ _No_ ,” she whispered, taken aback. “Sandor, I—” He waved off her apology. They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a moment.

“Why did _you_ agree to this? I thought you hated me,” she asked, if a bit impudently, sullenly poking a finger into the pile of dirt beside her.

The vice on Sandor’s heart tightened at her words.

“Aye, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a dragon before I die,” he answered. “Plus, I’ve heard the women in the free cities to be warm, wanton and willing.”

Sansa frowned at him, and pushed a handful of dirt from the pile beside her back into the grave.

“What, little bird, did you truly think I’d still settle for you when I have the expanse of beauty the likes I’ve never seen before across the narrow sea?”

Sansa scowled, and stood up quickly. She brushed the dust off her skirts, and looking Sandor in the eye, kicked an ample amount of dirt into the grave he stood in. He smiled bitterly, actually amused with her petulant display. She turned and started to walk away.

“Have you ever sailed before, girl?” Sandor called out after her.  “There’ll be krakens large enough to make your direwolves look like mewling, BLOODY PUPS!” He finished, shouting.

He saw her back straighten and her chin raise as she walked away from him with renewed purpose.

 _It was for the best_ , he decided, as he began hoisting the dirt she had just kicked in back out of the grave. 

The way that her dress had been too tight around her ample breasts made Sandor remember he’s a man.

It mattered not how high the collar of the dress on her, because the girl’s body alone under the layers of fabric _still_ made him envision his most indecent thoughts of what acts he’d very much like to do to her. She had a woman’s body she was stupidly still stuffing into child’s clothes.

It was at this moment that Sandor was positive of his suspicion that the Seven Gods, _if_ they existed at all, had indeed ignored him all his life, because if they, in all of their omniscience, could peer into his mind and see the things he was imagining doing to the little bird, with or without her consent, they would certainly have seen fit to rip him through the grave he stood in, straight into the seven hells.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun was too high in the sky for them to be leaving. It had been less than a day’s ride to the docks, but they had gotten a late start.

The little bird had gotten cold feet and refused to come out of her bedchambers that morning, until Sandor, grim-faced, glowering and muttering curses had kicked her door open and taken her trunk first, before returning for her. He’d picked her up and unceremoniously swung her over his shoulder like a gunnysack of apples, and walked next to the rickety oxcart rolling along with their trunks abed. At first she’d hit him feebly in his lower back with her little fists, but he limped onward and eventually she stopped. Once she did, he had set her down gingerly beside him, where she’d walked, silent, sullen, and staring.   

Now they were at the docks and the Elder Brother was saying his goodbye’s to the few Brothers he’d chosen as missionaries to travel to the free cities. _Spying sparrows more like_ , Sandor thought, looking at them. The Elder Brother firmly clasped hands with them, one by one, as they filed aboard the slick ramp onto the ship, a cargo vessel named “ _Sword’s Edge_ ” with an aged, weather-beaten and fowl-pecked mermaid affixed to the stern, arms etched open in a welcoming and wanton embrace.  There were small, knife-scarred caves where the jewels that had been her eyes had long been pried out.  Soon the three of them were the only ones left standing on the dock.

“Here, I’ll help you carry the trunks aboard, boy.” The Elder Brother motioned towards them and reached down to grab a handle, but Sandor, affronted at being called “boy,” hoisted one heavy trunk atop his shoulder effortlessly, and lifted the other by the handle. He might be lame and limping, but he still possessed an enormity of strength. Sandor stood and stared at the Elder Brother.

“Well,” The Elder Brother said. “Perhaps they should have called you the Ox.”

He reached into his satchel and pulled out an enormous squarish package before handing it to Sansa. She unraveled the linen wrapping to find a thickly bound leather book, richly embroidered titles on the spine, heavy from the looks of it in her small hands. The Elder Brother placed a hand on Sansa’s shoulder and leaning in, whispered something to her that made her somber face crack into a sudden grin, like a sun shyly peering out from the clouds. She nodded at him, told him goodbye, and walked up the ramp while the two men remaining on the docks watched her ascent.  

Sandor turned to regard the Elder Brother, who opened his mouth to speak. 

“Spare me your wisdom, Brother,” Sandor said instead. “I know.” 

Eyes crinkled in amusement, the Elder Brother nodded, as Sandor walked up the planks with their trunks. 

Neither of them had been to sea on such a sparse craft before, and Sandor had to catch Sansa by the arm when she wobbled stepping onto the ship. She deliberately pulled her arm away from him, a gesture which did not go unnoticed. She went below deck directly to her quarters, a small cabin at the end of a hall, alone save for another adjoined room, presumably meant as a cabin, which Sandor had chosen as his. He followed the girl with their trunks, and thrown hers down in front of her roughly, loudly enough to make her wince.

The Captain of the ship was a slatternly green-bearded Tyroshi man with hoops in his ears and broken veins mapped across his ruddy face. The man had styled himself Captain “Red Legs” Greaves, a name by which Sandor did not care to learn the meaning of.  Red Legs smiled broadly at them, a golden incisor glinting, as they all stepped aboard and eyed Sansa in an appreciative manner which made Sandor want to rip his gullet out.

The rest of the ship’s crew was not as amusing a sight as their captain, and seemed bored by Sandor and Sansa, a reaction for which he was grateful of. He had thought long and hard about Sansa being the only girl on a ship, and assuredly one of the most gorgeous girls any of the likes of these pitiful creatures had ever seen, and so nightmarish visions of what could happen to her should he be overpowered had taken root in Sandor’s mind. 

The Captain’s firstmate was a tall, thin and wiry creature named “Black Bart,” whose eye twitched from time to time. And although the man and was quite tall, he was not as tall as Sandor, and nowhere near as brawny. Black Bart also had a dog, some smallish shaggy rust-colored mongrel that yipped its greeting as they boarded. Sansa ignored most of the crew in favor of saying hello to the dog, scratching behind its ears as it wagged its tail appreciatively. There was an eye patch fastened over the dog’s left eye, which Sandor chuckled at. Red Legs grinned at them.

“We call him Patches.” Black Bart explained. “On account of the—”

“Let me guess,” Sandor interrupted, “Is it because of the _patch_?” he finished meanly. He wouldn’t be making any friends this voyage.

Red Legs guffawed at Sandor’s rudeness and responded when Black Bart scowled at them. “Aye, and Patches here is our good-luck charm. The old one’s too haggard.” He motioned towards the tired mermaid at the stern.

The first night they supped on salted beef in broth with a hard bread and ale. Sandor permitted the girl to have some, thinking she’d soon be sea-sick and should probably consume as much food to her heart’s content before the sickness set in, but regretted this immediately when Black Bart eagerly refilled her cup as soon as she’d drained the first one. Sandor shot him a hard look and he didn’t attempt it again.

The days passed peacefully and they sailed on with cold blustery winds at their backs, cajoling the ship forward quickly. The little bird had taken to reading her new book up in the ship’s mainmast, her green wool cloak drawn around her with the hood pulled over her head. She’d sit there all day, next to the lookout, an adolescent dark-haired boy who didn’t speak the Common Tongue. Sandor found amusement in his little bird enjoying her time in the ship’s crows nest, and wanted to say as much to her, but she was still pursuing a solid silence against him.

Sandor had been the one afflicted with the sea-sickness, a surprise to him as much as anyone. He’d felt unsteadied immediately as they boarded, but it wasn’t until later that his stomach roiled and rebelled when he ate, and the nausea confined him to stillness, elsewise he’d retch. He had tried to stay close to the bird above deck, but found it impossible in his condition. So she stayed high above him in her mainmast basket, and he’d gone down below to stay in his cramped quarters.

He was unsure of how long he’d lain in his cot, as his quarters had no telling light of day or night to pass time, but he’d heard a gentle knock at some point and exerted himself to sit up.

“Come in.” Sandor rasped, with the musty horsehair blankets still wrapped around him. 

The door opened slowly and the little bird gingerly stepped in, and sat on the edge of his bed, as far away from him as the small space would allow.

She brought him a hot, salty broth in an ale tankard to drink from. He held the warmth between his large clammy hands and sipped at it.

“And to what do I owe this sudden kindness, little bird?” Sandor rasped. “I thought we’d end up passing the whole voyage in silence.” He slurped some more of the broth down, scalding his tongue. 

Sansa paused, her hands folded demurely in her lap. She looked down at them before she spoke. “I once thought of you as a dog, not in the way you imagine now, but as one that had been kicked too many times. There is no true malice to you, unlike your brother. You’ve just been trained to lash out. You’ve been abused..." She trailed off, with her eyes downcast and nervously flattening her palms against her thighs. "And...I believe that the abused...or the aggrieved, the angered or endangered can still learn to be loved.” She stood and looked down at him bedside. "Besides, there's less enjoyment to pouting up there where you can't see me,"  she said, and smiled wanly before walking out.


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, Sandor awoke feeling as if he missed the sun and needed to feel it. He stood up and stretched, yawning, and felt stronger than he’d felt in days. He removed his malodored clothes he hadn’t bothered to change out of while ill, realizing embarrassedly he’d worn them last night when the little bird came in. He was surprised she hadn’t wrinkled her little nose in disgust, the smell of him.  He washed his face, redressed leaving his chainmail and boiled leather, rebuckled his sword over just his loose cotton tunic, and walked above board, wood stairs creaking under his weight.

When he first spotted them, he couldn’t tell what was happening. Black Bart had his hand on Sansa’s hip and was nuzzling her neck, but her eyes were screwed shut and her hands were clutched into tiny fists at her sides as he did so. Sandor stood there, stomach lurching and feeling as if he wanted to throw himself overboard, until the little bird opened her eyes and spotted him.  The look was pure terror. It was unwant.

As ill as he was, Sandor was still strong enough to grab the other man by the throat and fling him aloft of the ship’s side.

Sandor held the man out over the water by his neck as the firstmate kicked feebly and clung onto Sandor’s wrist, his face reddening alarmingly. Sandor felt as if he were made of flame, as if the fire that had taken his face had somehow birthed this beast he'd become, and now that fire was flickering through his veins, hot with rage. He squeezed the man’s throat tighter and watched his eyes bulge.

“If you _ever_ lay a damned hand on her again,” Sandor seethed, “I’ll cut you to ribbons and tie you down so you can watch as the gulls flay you, and take your flesh strip by _bloodied_ strip.”

He tossed the man down on the deck, where he scuttled backwards to where the rest of the crew had gathered to watch the spectacle.  Sandor spun to face the little bird, who was quaking. 

“How long has this been going on?” he demanded.

“Th—that was the first attempt,” she said in a small voice, looking at the ground. “Thank you. Thank you for saving me.” Sandor ignored her courtesies 

“Little Bird, why didn’t you fight?” he spat angrily.

“I don’t know how,” she said simply.

In that moment he realized the wolf-bitch sister of hers had stolen all the fight, and left Sansa with twice the gentleness a woman should possess. She hadn’t been trained for this. She had been trained for softness and delicacy.

He remembered back to King’s Landing when he had pinned Sansa down and stolen a song at knife’s edge, and how she had complied, despite her terrified little bird heart fluttering madly under his hand pressing her into the bed. She hadn’t fought him off. _She hadn’t known how_.

Some people fall in love, but Sandor just shattered.

He jerked her arm upwards, and bent it.

“Here, girl. Your elbow is the hardest point on your body. Hit any man with this and he’ll feel it wherever it lands for days.”

He also realized that day as he taught her the weak points on a man’s body in the orange glow of a setting sun reflected off the blissfully stilled sea, just why the Elder Brother and Varys had conspired to stick him with the little bird.

It was because he was the biggest, most brutish beast of a man they could saddle her with, yes, but more than that, it was because he already loved her. They must have realized his last breath would be given to save her. _Bastards_ , Sandor swore, grimacing, as the little bird stomped into his instep. She gave him an apologetic glance.

“Sandor…will you teach me to fight? With a sword?”

His heart swelled. Something else swelled too, but he ignored that and wondered if there were wooden practice swords on board.


	7. Chapter 7

In the days following the incident with Black Bart, Sansa had stayed near to Sandor like a second shadow. He wasn’t sure if it was because she feared Black Bart would try something again, or if the Little Bird had forgiven his previous rudeness after he’d saved her.

Several of the crew members had shyly presented her with a smallish wooden sword they’d fashioned out of bent boards from an empty ale cask, a gesture which Sandor misliked at first but accepted when he saw the reverence on their faces. It wasn’t lust they were looking at her with, but the shy affection with which one regards a beloved queen. Sansa the sweet little bird had, of course, won over the hardened soldiers of the sea and charmed the bitter sailors. They simply loved the girl. They’d even fashioned a wooden longsword for Sandor.

Sandor and Sansa stayed clear of Black Bart, who had begun to take his meals alone in the galley. The crew had begun to take a wide berth of Black Bart, too, which Sandor took to mean they did not condone his actions. After the incident, Red Legs had knocked on Sandor’s door one evening and apologized on behalf of Black Bart. Sandor, suspicious of why a former pirate would show such a courtesy, dully wondered just how much these sailors had been paid for Sansa’s safe passage to Pentos. There must be a sizeable sack of coins awaiting them in Pentos should she arrive unscatched. 

Despite all his suspicions and wariness, nothing compared to the joy Sandor felt when the afternoons came and it was time for them to practice.

Sandor felt confident that the little bird could now disarm a man, a notion which made him feel equal parts proudness and arousal, but she was clumsy with the sword and they had a lot of practice to do. She could even throw a solid punch now, one that might even startle a man of smaller stature, but felt like a child’s fist to Sandor.

Sandor suspected that she was too afraid of hurting him and holding back, but hoped she wouldn’t when she found someone she needed to hurt.

This afternoon they were practicing under a setting sun, squinting into the dying light as the wounded sun bled pinks and oranges across the sky and as Patches circled them and barked his dismay.

“Alright, girl.” Sandor growled. “En garde.”

She raised her sword somberly into the proper stance.

“Spread your feet,” he commanded, noticing she was still standing with her feet primly placed side by side. She moved them a slight bit farther apart and Sandor sighed exasperatedly, lowering his sword and crossing to her.

“No, little bird. Like this.” He clamped a large hand on her thigh just above her knee and moved it out, spreading her feet shoulder’s width apart. She blushed.

“I'm sorry,” she said softly.

“Don’t apologize to me. You’ll be the one who should be sorry when you get knocked off your feet because you haven’t balanced your weight properly. Now, en garde.”

She raised her sword again. Thus far he’d only taught her to parry, thinking they’d wait until they mastered blocking sword strikes before she could do them on her own.

He struck low and hard near her right, and she parried his sword, if a bit clumsily. She smiled, pleased with herself, and looked to Sandor’s face for his approval.

He wanted to smile back at her, but instead struck up and left, near her neck. Sansa brought her sword up just in time. Sandor raised his eyebrows, and smirked at her.

He darted to the left and struck near her hip, what would have been a glancing blow had she been armored. She wasn’t though, and missed her chance to block the hit, and winced when his wooden sword knocked her hip. Sandor felt guilty when he considered the sizeable bruise that hip would boast in a few moments.

He lunged at her, and she countered by ducking low and swinging under his arm, and poking her sword into his back. Sandor straightened and looked at her, bemused.

“You’ve killed me, little bird,” he told her, incredulous. “Well done.”

Sansa grinned and fumbled shyly with her sword.

“I mean it,” He continued. “I don’t know what sort of sorcery they have brewing in the North, but you can handle a sword surprisingly well.” Something bred in the Stark women, he thought but did not voice, as that would be a later conversation. His time traveling with Arya was something he had been wondering how to bring up to Sansa.

Sansa blushed again, and giggled with a dopey smile on her face. Sandor had a sudden maddening urge to press his lips to hers then, to taste the smile on her mouth.

“Okay. Okay.” Sansa said, stifling her giggles and trying to suppress her smile. “Let’s keep going.”

Patches barked his argument, nipping at her heels as she stood into her en garde stance and smiled at Sandor. Sandor wanted to live in the moment a little longer, the little bird smiling at him with a sword in hand, but he raised his sword as well and instead they fought.

By the end of the evening they had both earned their fair share of bruises that they showed each other over supper, like glorified badges of honor. At first Sandor had felt enormously guilty when she’d shown him the ones his crude wooden sword had given her after their first sparring match, but now felt bemused as he’d seen how she’d been proud of the ones she’d given him as well. Sandor wondered sometimes if she thought they were playing a game, and worried if she’d be able to actually fight should the time come. The bruises she’d smiled over, but once she’d nicked Sandor so hard that he’d bled, just the tiniest of cuts, and Sansa had been so anguished that they couldn’t practice again for the rest of the afternoon and she’d insisted on bandaging himself. _You can teach a gentle soul to fight_ , Sandor thought, _but fight comes from a place of rage._

 _Rage she doesn’t have_ , he added, while looking at her scratching behind Patches’ ears. His thoughts turned dark when he remembered all the reasons Sansa Stark had to hold rage, despite never wielding it herself.

“Show me the place where I killed you!” Sansa told him suddenly and Sandor snorted.

He stood and turned away, facing his back to her. He untucked his shirt, showing her his lower back. He looked down at her over his shoulder.

“Well?” he asked. “Do you see your mark, cruel woman?”

“Yes,” Sansa said, giggling. And she poked him where the bruise was.

Sandor winced and retucked his tunic into his breeches, before sitting down across from her again. He stared at her across the candlelight for a moment and felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Sansa’s broad smile faded into something coy, and she had to look down, blushing under his gaze. There came a sharp whistle suddenly and both of them turned to look.

Black Bart was standing at the top of his stairs, whistling for the dog. Patches, disinterested, looked up at Black Bart but remained laying at Sansa’s feet.

“Come on you stupid dog,” Black Bart sneered. “Time for bed.”

The dog still didn’t move. Sansa looked up at Black Bart.

“I don’t mind if he sleeps with me tonight,” Sansa said evenly. “I would quite like it, actually.”

“I’ll bet.” Black Bart snarled, “Laying with dogs seems to be of great importance to you.”

Sandor was on his feet in an instant, but he felt Sansa’s small hand on his back and he hesitated in tearing into the man.

“Ohhhh, this dog bites, eh?” Black Bart said. “Tell you what, little girl. You can keep that dog—” Black Bart said, descending the stairs. “But this is mine to do as I like.” He grabbed Patches around the neck roughly and yanked him up, as the dog yelped in pain and struggled. “And I think that I’ve grown tired of this one.” He turned to climb the stairs, running them up two at the time

“No!” Sansa cried out, and ran after him, grabbing her skirts in hand. Sandor rushed upstairs after her. When he came aboard, he saw Black Bart standing at the edge of the ship, holding the dog overboard as Sandor had held him the same way. Sansa was frozen in front of him, with her arm outstretched.

“Please…” Sansa whispered. “No.”

Black Bart turned, and seeing that Sandor was watching as well, grinned sickeningly and then let the dog drop into the water. Sansa rushed to the edge with such force Sandor feared she’d throw herself over too, in an effort to save the dog. Black Bart stepped back, smugly self-satisfied. From where he stood, Sandor could hear the animal struggling. It had survived the drop, Sandor thought wincing, to die a slower death drowning. He felt sorry for the wretched creature. Sandor looked at the little bird, but she wasn’t at the railing any longer. She was advancing on Black Bart.

Sandor saw her hand reach back lightning-fast as she balled it into a fist raised it high, and she hit Black Bart in the face with all the might she had in her pushed behind her small fist. It happened so quickly that Sandor barely had time to react. _Not that I would have stopped her anyway_ , he mused darkly as he saw the man go down from the punch. Black Bart’s eye began to swell and he reached up to touch it gingerly, eyes widened in shock. Sansa stood over him, shaking with rage.

“You are _vile,_ ” she hissed. She raised her hand to hit him again, but Sandor caught her raised wrist this time and they walked off quickly, dragging her along. He definitely believed that Black Bart deserved the hit she offered and much worse, but he didn’t want the girl to dirty her hands with this one. He’d take care of it.

Sansa wrenched her wrist free of Sandor and darted to her room, where she slammed the cabin doors shut with a loud clatter, and he heard the solid clank of the bar sliding home after. He heard her sob once on the other side of it.

 _More bloody crying_ , he thought to himself bitterly. He walked to the door and rapped on the door sharply.

“Go away!” she sobbed, muffled through the door.

“Let me in, little bird.” 

She unbarred the door and opened it. She stared at him, her tear-streaked face looking beautifully distraught. Sandor ducked under the doorframe and entered, stooping under the low ceiling.

“I wasn’t aware the great affection you had for dogs, little bird,” Sandor said dryly.

She squeaked, and covered her face with her hands.

“What's the meaning of this?” he asked gruffly, taking her wrists from her face. “It was just a dog. There will be more dogs in your future.”

She inhaled, shuddering, and spoke to Sandor’s chest. “Why does everything I love die?” she asked, voice breaking.

 _So that’s what this is about_ , he thought, suddenly feeling ill-prepared and inadequate.

She looked up at him. “I’m beginning to feel that my affection is an affliction,” she said thickly through her tears. “They’re gone, all of them…gone…”

He pulled her closer, and wrapped his large arms around her. She buried her face in his chest and he could feel her tiny body shake with her crying.

“There, there, girl. You’re going to make yourself faint, carrying on like that. Breathe,” he told her awkwardly, placing a hand on the back of her head and holding her to him.

He’d been waiting for the right time to tell her that Arya might still be alive, but wasn’t sure if that moment would ever come. Truth be told, he was unsure if the girl had survived, with her proximity to the Saltpans when she’d left him to die, but Sandor wanted the little bird to stop crying.

“Arya could still be alive,” he rasped quietly. “I saw her before I went to the Quiet Isles.”

Sansa looked up at him in disbelief and wiped her tears away with the heel of her hand, sniffling.

“Aye,” he nodded, reassuring.

“Where is she now?” 

“Bugger if I know.” At her crestfallen face Sandor added, “But the wolf-bitch left me for dead on the side of a road after a fight. She’s handy with a sword, that one. Seems to run in the family.” He tapped the underside of her chin, feeling clumsy.

Sansa nodded, smiling a little.

“Maybe she’ll reappear once your whereabouts are known…perhaps she’ll find you,” he said. Sansa nodded slightly, her eyes looking past him and focused inwards.

Sandor used a rough thumb to wipe away some lingering wetness under her eye. Attention returning to Sandor, her eyes searched his face. She swallowed nervously and her gaze flick towards his lips. 

"Seven hells," he muttered—and kissed her.

He kissed her softly, with his hands lightly atop her small shoulders. She leaned into his touch, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him in return. As her lithe little body pressed into him, he placed his hands around her small waist, where her hips flared out, and dug his fingers into her, pulling her nearer. He parted her lips with his tongue and she whimpered; a sound small and light from the back of her throat. Her tongue sought his, unsure and shy.

 _How does a married woman not know how to kiss?_ Sandor thought, running his hands down her backside. He grabbed her ass roughly, pushing her into him so she could feel his hardness now bulging the front of his pants. Abruptly, she broke their embrace and stared down at her feet. Confused, Sandor watched her cheeks flame up in a sudden redness. She stood there shyly for a moment, with her hands still placed on his chest. Sandor narrowed his eyes at her, studying. He thrust her from him by her shoulders and Sansa looked up at him, startled.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a maid still?” Sandor demanded.

“How is it any concern of yours?” Sansa shot back.

“It is my _concern_ ,” Sandor seethed, “because as your acting _shield_ , it would benefit me to know exactly what it is I’m trying to protect.”

Infuriated, he wanted to shake her by the shoulders and make her cry again. He wanted to murder the Imp for not seizing the gift he’d been granted with their wedding and leaving her maidenhood intact, a burden for Sandor to protect. Most of all, he wanted to throw her down on the tiny bed and seize it from her.

Instead, he let her go, and angrily stalked off, leaving the door swinging open in his wake.


	8. Chapter 8

Their days on the blasted ship were thankfully dwindling. Red Legs expected to reach Pentos by three sunsets’ time.

They were now standing on the weather deck of the ship with their practice swords. Sandor’s efforts to arm the little bird with fight had redoubled since that night in her quarters for several reasons; many of them himself. _Most_ of them himself, tallied in the sins he’d commit just to touch the girl again. He felt a galvanized keenness in teasing her, lashing out in the ways he used to. With each time that his pulse raced while he remembered the way her lips felt, or the way her small body had pressed to his, he was reminded of his duty to protect her. He’d taken advantage of his charge.

Not one of his current concerns were Black Bart however, who’d been subject to Sandor after he’d stormed out of Sansa’s cabin. He’d held the man over the dark churning waters until he was weeping and sobbing. Red Legs had nodded his assent to loose the man overboard, which Sandor did after slicing his back ankle tendons to draw the sea predators from their dark depths. If the first mate had survived the fall only to tread water, then the more he kicked, the more blood he’d lose in the water around him.

It had been days since that kiss. Maybe weeks, Sandor didn’t know and had lost track of time. They’d resumed their practice fighting although Sansa had ceased taking pride in their sparring and was reticent to strike him.

This afternoon was no exception. The girl’s strikes were hesitant and sluggishly self-conscious. The weather deck where they were was on the aft stern and had thick cables of rope running in a loose net up beneath the sails, and it provided them some cover for the high noon sun. The little bird had never spent this much time in the eastern sun and her skin was beginning to freckle over her nose. Sandor secretly found it irresistible, but she’d fretted and he’d scoffed at her vanity, upsetting her. Still, though, he'd wordlessly begun bringing her to the shaded areas of the ship to practice and she’d nary a peep of complaint. 

He slashed down at her on a cruel diagonal high above her head. Sansa brought her wooden sword up just in time to keep his from slamming into her neck.  The force of his blow made her stumble back. _I would have sliced her in half_ , he thought. The image of the butcher’s boy he’d slain came to mind, and Sandor winced, feeling his shame acutely. He lunged towards Sansa, his arm extending in a jab to her belly. She made no move to parry except jumping back and arching herself over his sword to avoid the tip stabbing her middle section. Sandor felt his anger rise and grabbed her upper arm to yank her upright to face him. He threw his sword down and it clattered loudly.

“Stupid fucking bird,” he snarled. “Why won’t you fight me anymore? Are you bored, do you wish to go back to reading your fairytales in the mainmast, dreaming of handsome knights to do the work for you when you need saving?”

Her eyes met her feet, avoiding his gaze.

“Look at me!” he hissed.

She obeyed, flicking up eyes of impudent blue. He could tell she was concentrating on keeping her face calm. He knew he was being cruel, and he knew he was being too hard on her, but this was the only way she would learn. It was the only way to teach Sansa Stark not to trust _anyone_ anymore, not even him.

Especially not him. He pictured the butcher’s boy again. He thought next of Arya Stark and remembered hitting the little bird’s wolf-bitch sister with the flat of his axe on the eve of the Red Wedding, a detail he neglected to tell Sansa.

“How long do you wish me to look, _ser_?” she asked calmly, interrupting his thoughts. She’d called him ser to anger him. _Good_ , he thought. _Hate me._

Just then the bow of the ship crested a wake and everything slid. An empty ale barrel rolled hard towards aft and there were some shouts from below. The girl’s balance didn’t hold and she stumbled forward. Sandor’s hands shot out to steady her, holding her shoulders.

The ship stabilized once more and rocked with the sea’s routinely rhythm they were used to. Sandor’s hands were still on the little bird’s delicate shoulders. She hesitated, but then raised one hand to cover his large one, and she looked at him again.

“Thank you,” she said politely. Sandor dropped his hands.

“Always remembering her peepings of courtesy.” He smirked down at her meanly.

“Yes,” she acquiesced. “Words. They are all only words.”

He wasn’t expecting her small, knowing smile. It infuriated him.

“Someday, Hound, you and I will have a conversation about the words we wage war with and the ways in which we both wield them.” She spoke softly, but clearly.

“Actions speak volumes,” she concluded. “And I can hear the tenderness in your touch loud and clear. It has always been there.”

Sandor’s steely gaze was fixed on her, something fierce glinting in the grey depths. Sansa, to his surprise, reached for his hand. 

“You will not hurt me,” she reminded him.

“Aye, little bird,” he rasped.

She gave a thin smile. “I believe I am done practicing for the day. Thank you, Clegane.” 

She parted from him, prim and perfect. He watched her pick up her book and pull her cloak on, bringing the hood over her face. She walked to the front deck and sat in a coil of rope, as dainty as you like. Always the fucking lady.

When he was laying in his swaying quarters that night, hands behind his head and staring at the too-near ceiling, he concluded that Sansa Stark had, in fact, slayed him during their practices this afternoon, with her kind words and her light touch. He had been bested by the girl. He nearly felt like smiling. _The weapons of a true lady_ , he thought wryly before drifting to sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Sansa POV! I decided that this story really needs multi-POV. Hope it's okay!

Sansa awoke to a thundering knock at her door. Still abed, she heard his low, rumbling voice from outside her door before he waited for her to acknowledge him.

“Pack your trunk, girl. The fair winds have brought us early to Pentos this day.”

Sansa threw the covers back and stretched her long legs, curling her toes as she did so, before getting out of bed. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and went to the wash basin. It was only seawater and it made her skin dry, as well as her insistently auburn hair impossible to brush. The waves of her hair were long and unruly, now nearly to her waist, and Sansa tied it back the best she could. Still, seawater to clean her face was better than nothing, she thought as the salt stung and she scrubbed herself clean.

She felt inspired this morning, after her talk with Sandor yesterday afternoon. She knew his cruel words were his concern disguised as disgust and disdain. Sansa, or rather _Alayne_ , had lived with Littlefinger far too long to accept words at first value. “ _There’s always nuance, sweetling,_ ” he’d told her.

Whenever she was reminded of her time in the Vale her thoughts inevitably betrayed her and strayed to Littlefinger’s unwanted touch and tongue. She shuddered in her nightgown.

While she dressed herself, she imagined her hands were Sandor’s. It was a secret she shared with herself, imagining her body through his hands or his eyes. She had often been told she was beautiful, and sometimes felt it, but when Sandor gazed at her with that peculiar glint in his deep grey eyes, Sansa felt stripped. It had begun to excite her.

When he had kissed her deeply and run his hands down from her shoulders, to her waist, to her backside, she had felt truly _beautiful_. His chest under her unsure hands felt hard and muscled and she was interested in exploring and the ways in which to make his heart race, but he’d left in an angry rush soon after correctly guessing she'd never lain with a man.

She finished and rushed to the decks, nearly trampling Sandor who was still outside her door. She remembered his fictitious hands on her and how she’d dressed while imagining herself shyly showing him the curves of her body where his hands would fit nicely and she blushed at him. He raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry for running into you, ser.” 

Sandor snorted and walked away from her. She followed him, taking the steps two at a time to keep up with him, her skirts gathered in hand.

Pentos was unlike anything she’d ever seen. There were brick towers standing tall along the port and through the city behind it, and she could see leagues and leagues of tiled roofs. She spotted an enormous Red Temple and hugged her arms to herself.

Sandor must have noticed where she was looking, since he broke their stunned silence, softly saying “Some of the red bloody bastard priests think this dragon queen we seek is the second coming of an ancient legend. In a prophecy of theirs.”      

“If she is the prophecy for the Red Priest, why is it that members of the Faith of the Seven are sending us to her?” Sansa asked.

“It seems the barking arbiters of gods are in aggreeance for once and are all howling for her dragons. What do your old gods have to say on the matter?”

“They’ve never said anything to me at all.”

This stymied Sandor. They fell into silence again and watched as the ship navigated the narrow port.

It wasn’t until afternoon that day that they reached the manse of Magister Illyrio Mopatis. He’d sent a litter to carry Sansa and Sandor, but Sandor had flatly refused to travel by it. He walked beside them, carrying her trunk. Illyrio had sent a few of his Unsullied to greet them, making Sansa wonder what kind of Pentos customs permitted the rudeness of not welcoming guests personally.

His manse was a palatial and imposing stronghold in the city. They were left at the main gate while their trunks were delivered to their guest accommodations inside. When they walked through gates, they were greeted by trees with dark nearly-black bark and pink blossoms, some of which were gently fluttering down to the waters of a sparkling marble pool, which had a statue of a naked boy in a fighting stance with a Braavos water sword in the center of it.

Illyrio met them here, with palms extended. He was enormously fat with an oiled and forked beard.  Sansa looked at the glittering jeweled rings squeezed onto his fat sausage fingers and imagined it must be painful. She smiled prettily at him and curtsied. 

“Darling girl,” he oozed her. “And you must be the noble Hound.”

“Call me Sandor,” he snapped.

“Sandor, then.”

A blond servant girl came up to them with a tray in each hand, one containing small toasts with a garlicky coating, and the other tray with porcelain cups of drink. She was a servant, but she had a bronze collar on her, which Sansa’s eyes widened at. She felt far from home.

Sandor refused but Sansa took the toast automatically. She remembered her poor lady mother’s words of guest rights. “ _Bread and salt_ ,” she recalled from her mother. She wasn’t sure if Illyrio practiced guest right, but she was a Stark and their way was the old way, and her lady mother and brother died horribly by a terrible violation of guest right. She thanked Illyrio and sipped the drink, which was something milky and thickly sweet, with a hint of something else in it.

“Cinnamon,” Illyrio explained, smiling at her. “Pentos is the city of spices, after all.”

While she held the cold cup in both hands, they toured the manse and Illyrio showed them his extensive gardens behind it.

“My lord, this is breathtaking,” Sansa told him.

This seemed to amuse the fat lord although Sansa didn’t know why.

“What a lovely little thing you are. Thank you, my sweet,” Illyrio said, staring at her. “Heavens, how rude of me—you both must be starving after the trip you’ve had and in dire need of a hot meal! We shall feast first, I can’t imagine what horrid things you ate on the voyage over here. Perhaps some goat tonight?” Illyrio asked.

Sansa looked at Sandor immediately, pleading, and Illyrio noticed.

“Is...something wrong, child?” Illyrio asked.

Sandor rolled his eyes, “She wants a bath. And I swear on my sword that you won’t be like to get her to eat a bite of food until she’s had one.”

Illyrio smiled widely, his mirth as ample as his girth.


	10. Chapter 10

Sandor was standing outside the bathchamber with his hand resting on the pommel of his sword and staring at the wall in front of him. To a passerby, one would see this hideously scarred imposing warrior and consider that there could be a king or queen in the chambers behind him, or just someone or _something_ vital enough behind the gilt door to put such a fearsome presence on guard in front.

A splash and the delighted peal of a girl's laughter came from behind it.

He’d strained to listen when the little bird was first brought in there, but through the thick door he could only hear her sweet murmurs of thanks and appreciation. He heard bucket after bucket of boiling water being dumped into the bath. Sandor was beginning to speculate on the size of the damned tub until he remembered its depths must accommodate its owner, Illyrio. He imagined the thing must be the size of a pool.

His thoughts strayed to Sansa swimming in it, naked as her nameday, auburn hair darkened with wetness and slicked to tangles down her back as she moved through the water. His hand tightened on his pommel.

When the water had cooled enough, he heard her get into the water and the gasp she gave soon after she was in the steaming water. He listened harder but he could distinguish no words, only soft murmurs and the cooing of the handmaidens attending her. He heard the odd splash or pour and imagined the action that accompanied it. First he thought the sounds were of the girls washing Sansa’s hair, and he pictured her tilting her head back as they rinsed. He assumed her eyes were closed and her lips in a dreamy little smile, only her shoulders above the water. When he heard what he thought was Sansa standing, he imagined the way the water would run down her body, dripping off her rose-tipped teats and down her to her navel as the washing cloth passed over her body. He wondered if Sansa did that part herself, an image he decided he much liked when he envisioned Sansa’s hand bringing the cloth between her legs and perhaps lingering, a—

“Ser?”

He was jolted into the present. A servant-slave was holding a tray in front of him, with drink and more of those tiny breads. He grunted disapproval and waved them away. No wonder the Magister was so fat. He ate extravagantly damn near every hour.

Sandor didn’t trust Illyrio. This entire plot to send Sansa to the Targaryen bitch reeked of Varys and his scheming, and Sandor was sure that he and the little bird were performing as expected. He only wished he knew what the performance was of, and how their fate as the mummers ended. He exhaled, knowing that he wasn’t a willing participant for them, their folly, or the realm, but for the girl.

Sansa had made an observation earlier that had caught him off-guard—how the priests of two faiths were vying for the same token Targaryen. He didn’t believe in the Faith of the Seven, but he believed in R’hllor even less. He flexed his forearm, thinking of the blasted Beric Dondarrion and his damned fiery sword. He’d slain the man in the end, but not before being badly injured by the flaming sword. When Sandor closed his hand into a fist he could feel the tightness of the burn scars on his arm, the flesh twisted and roped and shining. And numb. He mused on how many more cursed burns he would earn in his lifetime and if by the end of it, he’d be a golem, unfeeling and unflinching, encased in evidence of someone else’s hatred of him.

He stood there for maybe two or three hours and would have worried that the girl had fallen asleep in the waters had there not been the occasional noise of rippled water. Finally, after his desperate boredom was nearly permitting him to barge the door in and remove the girl, the door creaked open and the maids rushed out. One of them furtively glanced at him through her eyelashes and hurried right along after. Sandor pushed the door open wider and walked in.

Sansa was on a balcony, leaning over and watching something curiously. He strode behind her, his boots plodding raucously on the marble floors. She spoke to him while she was still bent over the railing and peering downward.

“They raise a slatted wooden plug to drain the tub through a slanted pipe beneath the floor.” She stood and caught his eye. “Look.” And then she bent over again. He examined the source of her curiosity and saw the seeping shine of her bathwater flowing out and down, towards the city gutter beneath the gates via small ruts edging the gardens. 

He was more interested in inspecting her, however. She had been given a gown from Pentos and it was a gauzy and ridiculous thing, a bright sea blue not quite to the depths or darkness of her eyes, tied beneath her breasts, ‘round and round her waist with silver cord. Her bare shoulders were topped with silver fasteners, pinching the straps in a thin spray of gauze drawn up from where the dress split to conceal her breasts and leaving a trail of bare skin between them. Sandor had never seen such a thing. It was inept in covering her.

She turned to peek back at him and he quickly averted his gaze. Sansa’s lips pursed politely, hiding a smile. She straightened and reached for the wet ends of her long hair, pulling them over her neck and baring her shoulders. There was no back to the dress and Sandor saw for the first time what the gentle sloping curve of her shoulders and spine did to accept and greet the flare of her hips…

“Your dress is bloody absurd.” He grunted.

“It would have been impolite to deny a gift from our host,” she answered, now looking out towards the harbor.

 “A gift from the host?” Sandor scoffed. “Tell me, pretty, why do you think the host has gifted you scraps of gauze to dress yourself in?”

She shrugged indifferently. “My dresses are filthy and he’s having them washed. He gave me something to wear. I quite like it.” She looked down at herself and lifted the filmy fabric from her thighs, letting it float back down. 

“The bath linens he gave me to dry with were perfumed!” she spoke suddenly, recalling. “I don’t know what this scent is.” And with that, she held her upturned wrist to him expectantly.

He was taken aback and there was a moment’s pause before his large hand reached up and closed over her forearm completely, bringing her wrist nearer to his face. He sniffed indelicately.

“Oranges, girl. Oranges and those pink blossoms you saw at the entrance of the manse. Those are cherry trees.”

Sansa tilted her head at him, amused. “You have a good nose, Hound.” 

He growled at her, but her amusement didn’t fade.

“Let’s go find Illyrio and this feast of his.” 

Sandor nodded assent readily, his stomach had been gurgling its empty discontent for hours. He let her walk ahead of him, glancing at her bottom as she walked. Although she was covered by a white silk shift, the sheer dress hugging her curves gave ample opportunity to envision the way her hips swayed when she walked. 

They had to stop so Sansa could softly gasp and mumble admiration of the tapestries on the walls of the long hallway. They were all violently vivid things, woven pain and tumult of events like the Doom of Valyria and Aegon’s Conquest. They soon turned the corner when they heard a girlish giggle and Sandor’s heart sunk. They stopped short to find Varys, simpering as always, and laughing at something Illyrio had said. He clasped his soft little hands together in delight when he spotted Sansa. He placed a hand atop her shoulder and looked past her to Sandor.

“But, _my_ , she’s grown even taller,” Varys told Sandor, his eyes glittering in a way that Sandor misliked. “From afar she’d be mistaken for a woman grown.” 

Sandor wanted to kick the eunuch in the place where his cock wasn’t.


	11. Chapter 11

Sandor glowered at their rippling laughter. He’d watched Sansa intently the entire evening, her small sips of wine and bright eyes, enthusiastic nodding and murmured agreements as she listened to the other men whine and drone on with their dull table talk, of sigils and families and King’s Landing gossip. Not the real gossip, mind you—not the kind Varys was famed for, anyhow, with his damned whispers. They spoke of marriages and deaths, of polite court news. He had to admit Sansa was in her element, though. She was seated elegantly, with her long legs crossed at the ankles and sitting upright in her chair, her back perfectly straight. She may have looked like some wild creature in that ridiculous gown and with her hair in loose waves around her face, but anyone could plainly see the girl was a highborn.

Illyrio and Varys kept glancing at each other throughout the meal, these delighted sidelong looks whenever they were particularly enchanted with something Sansa said.

At first, she’d made an effort to include him in the conversations but the talk had turned to fabrics trading and the spice market and although Sansa could keep up, Sandor was much too bored to feign interest.

The feast was a magnificent one, and Illyrio’s size was an easy indicator of the extravagance he was accustomed to. There was roast boar and buttered beets alongside wintercakes baked with ginger and pine nuts. There were trenchers of pearl onions simmering in gravy with pieces of thick bacon in it. There were pieces of crispy fried trout stuffed with herbs and slices of lemon. They were drinking a spicy mulled wine, made with so many cloves that Sandor felt his lips begin to numb. He had never eaten so well, not even in all his time at King’s Landing, not even when he won the Hand’s Tourney.

He skewered a piece of roasted boar with his fork and unceremoniously stuffed it into his mouth, still staring at Sansa. She glanced at him and he dropped his eyes to his plate. _Seven hells_ , he swore at himself.

He had ceased knowing how to act around the girl. To his utter astonishment, she seemed to appreciate his attentions, but that was like to change once they were around boys her age again and the trauma of her recent history wasn’t causing her to attach herself to the slightest kindnesses. He remembered his thwarted attempts at pushing her away on the ship. He’d mistook the girl for a fool, for certain. He remembered her words, repeating them in his head, “ _I can feel a tenderness in your touch…_ ”

When they were in King’s Landing and he had been sent to bring her to King Joffrey, Sandor remembered slowing his steps so that his pace matched hers. He wondered now if she had caught onto that, too.

The silence of the table broke his reverie and he noticed the three of them staring at him.

Sansa cleared her throat delicately, “Sandor, I was just explaining to them of how you saved me on the ship from that awful Black Bart.”

Sandor shrugged and stuffed a beet into his mouth. “Soon you’ll be like to save yourself, girl, and won’t be needing the likes of me.” He mumbled through his food.

Illyrio and Varys both looked at Sansa, who gave them a small, apologetic smile. “Sandor felt it best that I learn something of defense for these situations.”

Varys then stared at Sandor, his mouth slightly agape. He opened his mouth as if to speak before changing his mind and raising his eyebrows while shaking his head slightly.

Later, when Sandor had stuffed himself to contentment and then some, Illyrio invited his guests to sit with him on the terrace near the gardens. Varys and Sansa agreed immediately, excitedly, but Sandor scoffed.

“I’ll take the wine you’re offering, but I could do without the company that it requires.” And he stood up, his chair squeaking against the floor. Sansa was blushing, on his behalf it would seem.

He left them, feeling he was near enough to the girl if there was to be any trouble. When he returned to his chambers there was already a flagon of wine neatly placed by his bed. He ignored the cup beside it, and grasped the cork, pulling. He drank deeply.

He wandered back to the hallway of tapestries and studied them in the low light of the candelabra. It flickered softly against the embroidered violence. He neared the Doom of Valyria and saw the volcano spewing magma, drowning townships and homesteads in a sea of fire. There were small string bodies stitched in anguish, their little bodies aflame and scattered as the earth trembled. Such a wonder, a violent thing like this captured by such skill. In Westeros, he thought, this would become a song—something beautiful. Something false.

His hand grasped the neck of the wine fully as he wandered further, reaching the little bird’s chambers. He pushed the heavy door open unselfconsciously and stepped inside. His footsteps seemed much too loud to him, as if he knew he was somewhere he ought not to be. He tried to step lighter. He walked to the balcony and could peer down to see the three of them, wine glasses in front of them. Sansa had swept her long hair over one shoulder and was teasing her fingers through the ends of it, combing it as she listened. _Must be drunk_ , Sandor mused to himself, _to behave so rudely_.

He smiled slightly, comforted that the girl was relaxed enough to drink freely and enjoy herself. He knew he’d never let anything happen to her while he was around.

He walked back inside her chambers and stepped behind the dressing screen to her wardrobe. Her trunk was open, she’d been rifling through it and her smallclothes were scattered about. He nudged some with his foot and briefly debated stealing a small silken souvenir, but instead moved to the hanging dresses in the wardrobe. It dawned on him that Illyrio had been more generous than Sansa had let on as his hands trailed through the sheer and silken fabrics, in an array of colors that he knew must have excited her when they’d arrived. He rubbed a gold thing between his thumb and forefinger. He didn’t even know what to call this color, or fabric. _Or garment_ , he added once he took a look at the winding straps and sashes that it was comprised of. He was lost in thought, imagining the ways in which this would hug Sansa’s body when the door creaked open. Sandor froze.

“Goodnight, my lord,” he heard the girl say, before the door shut and she yawned delicately.

He was torn between wanting to make himself known and wanting to know how the little bird behaves when she believes herself to be alone.

He chose the latter, holding his breath as he listened to her gown softly drop to the floor, a whisper of fabric and a gentle descent of rustling cloth. The bed creaked as she got in and the soft rustle of the sheets as she pulled them back sounded like music to Sandor.

His heart was pounding but he didn’t know if it was because of his error in judgement in staying quiet and not making himself known, a decadently dishonorable decision—

Or if it was because of the quiet sigh he heard next, a wistful sound. He wildly wondered if she was the sort to _do_ that, if she even _knew_ how, when he heard a small girlish gasp that answered his question. He knew he needed to interrupt now, he knew that what he was hearing was not intended for him. She’d hate him for this.

“Keep it down little bird, you’ll wake Westeros from here with that wanton moaning,” he rasped, stepping out from behind the dressing screen.

She sat up and pulled the sheets to cover herself, and shrieked at him.

“Oh, be calm, girl, I won’t touch you,” he said.

She spluttered indignation at him, infuriated and stuttering. “G-get out! Get out! Out!” she choked.

Sandor threw his head back and laughed, endeared by the little bird’s display and her vivid flush.

“Get out!” she insisted, yelling. He smirked at her.

“Out!” she all but screeched, reaching for the wine cup at her bedside. She launched it towards him and it connected with his temple.

“Seven _hells_ ,” he swore, bending and bringing his hand to his head. When he looked up again, he saw a look of dire concern on her face, as if she hadn’t actually expected her toss to bring the cup near him. When he smirked at her again, her soft concern melted and was replaced with a petulant purse of the lips, an unladylike pout.

He genuinely resented being chased out like a dog. He couldn’t leave like that, he knew. He couldn’t walk away having let her get away with this. He walked towards the bed and saw her bring the sheets up higher. He leaned one knee on the bed and held a hand on the bedframe so he was hovering over her, his large frame causing her to cower slightly beneath him. He took his free hand and laid it flat against her stomach. He felt her tense beneath his touch.

“You know, I could show you some things. I could show you what this body was meant for.” He let his palm travel downwards, curving over her hip. He brought it towards the juncture of her thighs and rested it beneath her navel, his thumb grazing where her thighs met ever so slightly.  He looked into her eyes and saw that although they were wide, her lips were parted and she was staring at his.

“You need only have asked,” he hoarsely whispered before removing himself and walking away. He heard her exasperated groan of frustration behind him and the corner of his mouth twitched in a smile as he shut the door behind himself.


	12. Chapter 12

Sansa had waved the handmaids away when they’d come to bring her breakfast and help her dress. Her face was buried in the pillow and she heard the tray being set down on the table just outside, glinting in the morning light of the balcony. She wasn’t fit for company at the moment.

Every time she recalled the previous evening, she felt her stomach sinking in utter and insolent shame, an embarrassment she felt unable to recover from. Her face was bright red now, despite there being no one to blush at. She groaned into her pillow as another wave of adolescent embarrassment swept through her. She pressed her fists against her eyes and hated herself for a moment.

She stayed like this for quite some time, halfheartedly devising a plan to fake an illness and remain abed. So she wouldn’t have to see _him_. Or any of them. _Ever_.

To her horror, the night had replayed itself again and again through her mind, dragging her from the depths of sleep. It wasn’t just that he had seen her or heard her, really—this was a game she played, something she had learned, as she imagined his hands where hers roamed over skin and to unknown terrains, territory she had only just begun to explore. She was mortified at his intrusion, at her reaction, and mostly—at his exit. This was the part that Sansa thought of most and recalled the most potently. Such a light touch and she had wanted him feverishly.

She felt her stomach flip again and she brought her balled fists down to the bed. _What has happened to me?_  she wondered, trailing her fingernails down the crisp sheets and playing with the fabric lightly. She tugged and smoothed, tugged and smoothed. She rolled it between her fingers and turned her head aside to glance out towards the balcony. The morning sun was now high in the sky, a bright and hot glare into her bedchambers. A bird, black of wing with a grey crest had settled itself happily on her toast within the breakfast tray.

“Shoo, go on!” Sansa said, standing to wave it away. It fluttered upwards and swooped magnificently over the gardens, flying in an affronted finale. Sansa stood on the balcony in her nightgown, enjoying the breeze breaking up the hot air’s stillness as it ruffled her hems. She stood on her tiptoes and stretched high, her fingers reaching upwards and calves aching. She had to face the day sooner or later.

She dressed in another newer gown from Illyrio, this one in smooth linens and a lilac color. It covered her more than the previous dress and she hoped Sandor would like this one better. She smoothed the skirts, inwardly frustrated with herself for thinking of him at all.

She sat down to her breakfast spread and was impressed. Illyrio was not known for his sparseness.  Sansa broke her fast on hard black sausage, spiced with peppers, along intricately marbled tea eggs and fried toast with salted thin slices of tomatoes. She was sipping at the curious iced milk drink they’d tried when they arrived when she heard a knock at the door. She patted delicately at her mouth with her napkin and hoped it wasn’t him. She wasn’t ready yet. Her shame was still too acute. As was her anger.

“Come in,” she called softly.

Varys entered and Sansa inwardly admonished her slight disappointment. He sat down across from her.

“Would you please join me in breaking our fast, my lord?” Sansa said, gesturing at the expansive food. Varys shook his head, a small smile already in place.

“No, thank you, child,” he told her. Sansa poured him a drink of water, which he accepted instead. He held the cup in his small, soft hands and played with the sash of his ornate robed garb. He looked weary.

“My lord?” Sansa asked. “Is everything alright?”

He exhaled and looked at her with an expression of such honest pity that Sansa felt uncomfortable.

“Tell me, dear girl, when was the last time you felt everything was alright?” he asked softly.

Sansa placed her glass down and looked into his face. The corner of his mouth tilted up in a smile, but it was a slight one that didn’t extend warmth into his eyes. She thought for a moment, her eyes cast down towards the sunny gardens below. She smiled sweetly at him. She smiled genuinely.

“When King Robert came to visit Winterfell. When I was full of nothing but songs and stories of knights. It was silly. I was a very stupid girl,” she said, still smiling although its tide had turned and the smile was bitter.

Varys looked at her, concerned. “That was the last time you felt joy?” he asked, aghast.

“Oh, no, my lord. My apologies, I misunderstood your question. When King Robert came to Winterfell, that was when I felt that everything was as it should be.”

She glanced into his eyes, gauging his reaction. “Everything felt alright, then.” She took a delicate sip of her water. A brief silence settled between them. 

“But, I was truly happy some of the afternoons on the ship when Sandor was attempting to teach me how to wield a sword!” she said lightly. She laughed at his incredulous reaction. “Really! Sandor has a gentle heart, I truly believe this.”

Varys smiled at her like he felt sorry for her. “My dear, sweet Sansa Stark. Whatever gentleness you see in Sandor is likely your own, reflected.”

Sansa smiled at him for lack of another appropriate reaction. She didn’t want to argue with him. She didn’t want to be rude.

“I am actually here with a slight change of plans. You and Sandor will be leaving soon, yes, to take a riverboat along the Rhoyne to Volantis, and then to Meereen. You will still be meeting the Targaryen girl, Daenerys. We have a connection there whom we’ve notified of your impending arrival. They are anticipating you and they are very expectant,” he said warmly. “But there is one last detail that we need you to address with her once you’ve gained her favor.”

Sansa tilted her head slightly, waiting.

“There is...another contender for the throne. Another viable Targaryen—a trueborn Targaryen prince. A boy named Aegon.” He traced the edge of his cup with his middle finger, making it ring. “We need you to convince her to join his cause and abandon her own. He is her nephew, and as Rhaegar’s only heir, has a better claim to the throne. He was making for Meereen, like yourself, to join her, but...” Varys trailed off and sighed delicately. He looked back at Sansa. "Well. His plans have changed. He's made for Westeros. Without dragons. You must convince Daenerys Targaryen to join him there. At once." 

Sansa stared at his finger on the rim of the glass, transfixed. She’d heard what he said but it made her feel numb. _She’s going to eat me alive_ , Sansa dully told herself. _The dragon queen will devour me for my insolence_.

“And Sandor will be there, still?” she asked Varys.

He nodded.

“And when I’ve done this, I can return to Winterfell and you will give your coin for its rebuild?”

He nodded again. 

“Yes, my lord. I will do my best,” she said, as Varys reached to grasp her hand. She spoke, before he pulled away. "Oh, and my lord—I was truly happy last night with the lovely feast and the even lovelier company. Your friendship has been an unforeseen joy."

“What a dear, dear child you are.” He stood, the silks in his robe swishing. “You truly are the perfect lady.” He kissed the back of her hand and left her, shutting the door gently behind him.

Sansa didn’t know how long she had sat at the table on the balcony until the skin of her nose turned pink and she felt the pinch of a slow sunburn beginning on her arms and shoulders. Her mind returned to the events of the previous night, and she again pictured Sandor teasing her maliciously. She decided she’d had enough of a sulk.

 _The snow castle I built in the Vale_ , she thought. _Before it was crushed._

 _The necklace Joffrey presented to me_ , she remembered. _When he was still my prince; the prince, not the prince; a monster._

 _The Hound being alive,_  she recalled. _The Hound._

 _The Hound, my ally,_  she added. _My shield._

She was counting her recent moments of happiness, still dwelling on Varys’ question. She wasn’t allowing her mind to travel too far back to remember Robb and her mother or Bran or Rickon. Father, or Jon. Even Arya. She wouldn’t travel that dark path so she stayed in the light of recent events. Her mind was straining at the seams, sifting, gleaning, and grasping memories. _The Hound_ , she repeated. Her stomach did a backflip.

She had wandered to his chambers. She knocked and waited for an answer, making herself count enough seconds before knocking again. She waited until sighing, giving up, and resigning herself to an afternoon alone with her handmaids. She turned and stepped away, when she ran face first into a man’s hard chest. She squeaked.

“Easy, girl.” He rumbled, taking her shoulders in hand and steadying her. “Did you need something?”

She could hear the blood rush in her ears and felt her mouth go dry. _What a peculiar reaction_ , she thought before noticing the way his grey eyes glinted down at her. _A gaze sharp as steel._

“Do you?” he asked again, impatient _._

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Sansa spoke suddenly. “Through town? I’ve been in my bedchambers all day.”

He snorted at her and she frowned, “I’m restless, I mean.” She wasn’t in the mood to be teased anymore.

Sandor smiled just enough to reveal a shiny incisor. Not even a real smile, but something of a slight snarl or cruelness. “As it pleases my lady.” He gave a mocking bow.

Sansa lightly drew her fingers under his chin and tilted his head up towards her face. Softly she said, “Last night you seemed to be keenly interested in what pleases me, Hound," and inwardly rejoiced at the way her words made the expression drop from his face. It was this moment that she decided mayhaps she did enjoy this game with Sandor, this teasing and mocking play. She only began to enjoy it when she knew she could win.

They had walked through piers crowded with rickety stalls and merchants peddling earthen clay pots full of various tinctures and creatures. Jars containing moving ooze, sliminess that seemed alive and horrible until Sandor laughed his rasping laugh at her discomfort. She’d held a thing, then. She’d wrapped her hand around a tentacled translucent thing swimming in a jar, swirling in languid circles. It had become nothing in her hand, like water with edges. She held it to Sandor and he backed away.

They walked to the center of the city, a rising incline with neatly cobbled streets. They warily passed the Red Temple and she wondered what red priests would ever say of Sandor’s burn scars. How can they justify that? Could they think it a holy thing? She thought that Sandor must be reliving the same memory, implicated in the hard line he’d set his mouth into as they passed.

Sansa missed the old gods. It was hard to pray to something you cannot see, but she had attempted with faceless trees, hoping they might pass a message along to the weirwoods. She’d read of a type of tree grove once whose roots grew together under the forest floor.  To one’s eyes, it seemed a normal forest with the trees separated from each other, but in truth their roots connected thickly beneath the surface of the earth and that’s how they survived and stayed strong. They grew together. They helped each other.

She reached out and placed her hand in Sandor’s. He jerked slightly at first, as if her touch was a shock, but after a confused glance down at her face, he held her hand lightly.

“This doesn’t mean I’m not still upset with you about last night,” Sansa told him.

He chuckled softly, “I am surprised you still would have anything to do with me.”

Sansa stopped walking, and tugged his hand to still him. They were in an open merchant’s circle with a statue in the center depicting some nameless bronzed man staring out towards the sea stoically. The carts were leaving with squeaking wheels and several beggars perched by the statue, their coins tinkling in tin cups. The smallest one was in rags, a hood over their head. They couldn’t have been older than a child, and Sansa felt grief for the life they had known.

She stared at Sandor, unsure of what to say next. He stared back. Sandor wrapped her hand more firmly in his and squeezed, which she returned.

“I meant it, you know,” he finally rasped.

“Meant what?”

“What I said about you last night. About you—” He gestured to her with his free hand. “About your…” he trailed.

 “My what?” Sansa pressed.

“You know.”

“I don’t. Maybe I would like to hear how you would say it.”

“Seven hells, little bird, don’t you hear this kind of thing enough? Men slobbering all over you, I’m sure they have been since before you had those teats and that arse. In fact, I _know_ they have.”

Sansa briefly thought of Littlefinger and dropped Sandor’s hand, disgusted.

“Oh, have I offended the noble lady with my coarseness? Out of all the buggering boldness you’ve accepted from me, _that’s_ what angers you?”

“I’m _not_ angry!” 

“I’ll only tell you the truth, girl. You won’t always like it.”

She looked at him and noticed that the low sun was casting a gold light to his burn scars so that the unburned side of his face was in shadow. The goldness glinting made them look sorcerous, twisted sinew and black flesh. Accursed.  She felt guilty for pressuring him to say something about her beauty, suddenly. She was selfish and unkind.

“Have women thrown themselves at your feet in such a manner?”

He raised an eyebrow. “So the little bird does notice the attention of men.”

She smiled a little, validating his idea.

“Some women have, actually,” Sandor told her. Sansa knew that if her face betrayed her shock that his feelings would be hurt, so she nodded as if she already knew what he was going to tell her.

“I may be a scarred and snarling beast, but I’ve found that it excites women from time to time.”

Sansa regarded his lean form, beginning to understand. She watched the broad line of his shoulders and how they extended to his arms, his loose tunic concealing muscles she knew existed. She’d insisted he omit his armor, thinking it would be hot and uncomfortable for him outside.

She looked to his face again, and saw him watching her.

“Does it excite you, little bird?” he rasped quietly.

She blushed. She gathered words. The right ones.  

“You...do excite me, Sandor. In a few ways. You are entirely unexpected.” He was listening earnestly as she continued, “There is so much more to you than what you show people, I believe. So much beyond the apparent.”

“I could say the same for you, girl,” he grunted.

Sansa smiled brightly at him. He may not have told her she was beautiful yet, but this was good, too. He smiled back down at her. He reached a hand out hesitantly, which she accepted readily and placed her small palm in his much larger one. She loved his hands, truly. She imagined them and the places of her where they’d wander frequently. She blushed, again, thinking of where they’d actually been recently.

The sun was dipping lower and she knew they’d need to hurry back before nightfall, but she wanted to linger in the moment a little longer. His enormousness, his scars, his black hair falling past his shoulders. His hand covering hers tightly. The golden sun reflected on the choppy seas, sending up sparks of orange and pink against the waves as they crashed and clashed against the rough winds in the harbor far down below. She wanted to tease him, remembering the kraken comment at the Quiet Isle, but when she turned to him, he was staring at a point on his chest. A deep and wrong redness bloomed suddenly. A bone was sticking out, _no_ , a blade, _no_ , a handle, a handle of a blade. He dropped her hand suddenly, and the redness had consumed his chest and was dripping now, dripping to her slippers. He dropped to his knees.

“Sansa,” he croaked.

She screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg please don't hate me/please stick with me! i promise that this all gets unfucked. <3


	13. Chapter 13

Sansa stood screaming in the town square until she saw someone, a septon, had come running. _Don’t faint_ , she numbly reminded herself, looking at the blood. _Please stay awake._

Merchants were peering through their windows and from behind closed doors to quietly observe the spectacle. The septon glanced over her form efficiently, looking for injuries, before casting her aside to kneel beside Sandor.

“We must get you inside,” the septon said to him. “It isn’t safe for you here.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Sandor groaned sarcastically, leaning on the man as he was helped up. Sansa rushed to his other side and held her hands nervously towards him. She wasn’t sure what her intention was, since she could not catch him if he fell, nor could she support his weight. But nonetheless, she held her hands out near him, fluttering nervously and dumbly.

The septon led them through an open doorway. _A pub_ , she considered, glancing at the earthen floors packed hard by years of footsteps. _Or an inn._ She tried not to consider how this was all her fault, since she was the reason he hadn’t worn his armor. She tried to squelch the small voice that suggested this was all her fault for requesting they go for a walk in the first place.

She followed Sandor and the nameless septon down a darkened corridor, and worried for Sandor’s head nearly brushing the ceiling. The septon walked through another open doorway and led Sandor to the pallet in the corner, where he laid the large man down. Sandor grimaced. He looked pale.

“Get water, clean linens, and begin boiling wine,” the septon turned to say, only he didn’t say it to her. He spoke to someone behind Sansa, and when she turned around she saw another young septon in novice robes, with dark eyes and darker hair nod quickly at the older man, his eyes cutting furtively to Sansa before he quickly left.

“Stay out of the way,” the kneeling man said. This time he was truly speaking to her. Sansa nodded, and backed out of the room. Sandor was cursing loudly and the septon was cutting his tunic open. She saw the dagger’s blade then, and she saw how thin it was. Like a needle sticking out of his chest.

She turned and fled down the corridor, back towards the open doorway. She ran to the street and looked in all directions. She caught sight of a scrawny girl-child staring at her shyly from the stone steps of a bakery so Sansa motioned her forward. The girl was wearing a man’s tunic, only it fit her as a dress and hung to her calves. Her brown hair had been roughly sheared short and her green eyes peered warily at Sansa from beneath her bangs. Sansa dug in her coin purse and held a gleaming gold coin up to show the girl, who then came forward.

“Can you understand me?” Sansa asked. The young girl nodded. Sansa knelt so she was looking into the child’s eyes. “Do you know where Magister Illyrio Mopatis lives?” The girl nodded.

“Good. I need you to run as fast as you can to his gates. Tell the guards that the hound has been bitten and his sparrow stays with him. Can you remember that?”

The girl nodded again.

“Tell me.” Sansa clipped. “Tell me what you are going to say to them.”

“The hound has a bite and his sparrow is with him,” the girl dutifully repeated, in her accented Common Tongue.

“Good girl. I will give you one coin now, and three when you return. Off with you.” As she stood again the girl snatched the first coin and ran. She watched until the girl disappeared down a narrow alleyway, still running.

Sansa peered into the town square again, and felt the eerie silence. A deliberate silence. She knew she was being watched, that those eyes she had noticed behind shutters and windows were still upon her. Her own eyes raked the area they’d been in when the knife appeared in Sandor’s chest, over the stones smeared with Sandor’s blood, over the statue, over the beggars— _the beggars_. She stared at the beggars. There were only three now, with the impending nightfall having scattered the rest to seek safe cover. She took a deep breath and marched forward, towards the smallest one she had seen earlier. The small one slowly stood to face Sansa as her slippered heels clacked dully across the cobblestones. She looked down, remembering the blood stains on them. They would have to be dyed now to cover the dark droplets of blood.

When she drew closer, she noticed that the small one was not so small after all, that it was just a thin girl not much younger than she. The thin girl had wild and knotted black hair. He nose had been broken so many times that it was nearly flattened against her ruddy face. Sansa willed herself to stare into the other girl’s face as she approached, but wildly imagined seeing it flicker for an instance. The more she stared as she advanced, the less the girl’s face seemed like a face and the more it seemed like a rippling tapestry. Something woven and deliberate. The longer she stared at the girl’s face, the less it looked like a face at all and the harder it became to recognize. She felt she could see the face more clearly if she looked past her, her periphery sharpening the illusion where her gaze could not. Sansa struggled to understand and finally shook the thought loose as she reached the girl, now standing in front of her.

“Did you see what happened?”

“Aye, milady.”

“Where did the knife originate?”

The girl mutely stared at Sansa instead of answering and Sansa saw the face flicker again. Her heart started racing and she felt truly afraid. As her foreboding fear began to strike her down, the cruel sun responded by finally dipping beneath the horizon and leaving them with naught but the dying embers of daylight which cast ghastly and grotesque shadows through an effusive and crawling, sprawling darkness. The other girl began to laugh and Sansa backed away from her, frightened.

“Tell him I still remember where the heart is, Sansa.” The girl spoke through spine-chilling and harsh laughter.

_It knows my name_ , she thought and wondered if Sandor had spoken it aloud when they were here before.

“Tell him I could have hit it if I wanted to,” the girl finished, softer.

Sansa stopped in her tracks, willing her own voice to not echo the trembles she felt throughout her bones, shaking her. “Who are you?” she all but whispered to the faceless girl.

“No one,” the girl answered just as quietly, and then the darkness reached out and overtook her as the last lights were consumed.

Sansa turned and ran back towards the inn, still hearing the girl’s laughter ring in her ears. She didn’t know who the girl was, or if her confession to an attempt on Sandor’s life were just the ramblings of raving madness, but she felt unsafe in her presence.

Inside the inn and much later, Sansa was leaning against the wall in the corner of the room where they worked. The two septons, she had learned, were the older Brother Dobromil and the novice Brother Hobb. Brother Dobromil was a stout man with thick legs and a thick neck, and a shiny bald patch on the top of his head. His eyes were small and deep set, but not unkind. When Sansa returned and retreated to the corner, he noticed her and was silent for a moment before he offered a quiet apology for barking at her earlier and abandoning his courtesies.

Brother Hobb hovered closely, and he kept shaking his dark hair out of his eyes. He would have been quite a handsome sight to Sansa in another life. He was a well-made young man, a trait which his robes did not disguise well. This was an actual inn they were all quietly hiding within, and this was the room belonging to the Brothers. Sansa had offered to purchase them a new room for the evening but they waved her offer off. The room was warm and dry, if musty and smelling slightly of mildewed hay. Placed high in the walls were small square windows darkened by the inky night outside, but the fire burning high in the hearth chased furtive shadows by casting merry flickers of firelight across the walls.

Sandor lay quiet on the pallet, his breaths shallow and linens wrapped around his bare chest with a dark red stain in the middle.  She had in the past weeks imagined the thrill she’d feel when she finally saw him without his tunic, but she felt nothing of that thrill now. Her stomach was in knots and she was terrified. She wanted nothing more than to kneel next to him and trail her fingers over his skin, to kiss scars old and new, and she wished to pray at Sandor’s bedside—but she had been silently standing in the corner, tucking herself out of the way while the septons worked.

She had been glad not to be there when they pulled the knife out. There was so much blood on the cloths they’d used to clean Sandor and Sansa felt certain she’d have fainted as they stitched him up. _He was lucky_ , Hobb had said. _To be such a large man. A smaller man would’ve died when the dagger reached his heart._

Sansa had nearly thought to tell him what the eerie faceless girl had said about missing the man’s heart purposefully.

Sandor had been given a sleeping draught to keep him calm while they stitched and to keep him from moving. He slept deeply now, laying on his back with his hands curled slightly at his sides. Sansa grew too tired to stand, and she dropped to her knees, still in the corner. The septons were cleaning now, washing the blood from their hands and taking handfuls of the bloodied linens out of the room.

Time still passed, and Sansa still knelt in the corner opposite Sandor. Hobb and Dobromil stayed for a time, sitting at the small table and drinking steaming tea, occasionally glancing back at Sansa, but she did not move. Her grief had hit her. They tried to move her, and they tried to usher her out, but she refused them. She laid her head on the dirt floor when they left. She cradled her head in the crook of her arm and let the fire die out. She had forgotten about the scrawny girl she’d sent to Illyrio’s manse and forgotten the coins she promised to her. She forgot everything except the sleeping man across the room and she watched his chest rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall, until she was breathing evenly and she slept.

She woke before the morning arrived. Her neck was stiff and sore and her pretty lilac linen dress was now obscured by dirt and blood. Sandor slept on. She crawled towards him and knelt by his bed. The pre-dawn light was a silken grey soaking into the room, built of small shifting stillnesses as the world awoke. Sansa could smell the salt air from the sea. She prayed for Sandor; she prayed relentlessly. She didn’t know why the septon was the one to come running, but she imagined it a stroke of great fortune. She cast aside the quiet voice which contemplated the septon had been following them all along; trailing them to send secrets to Westeros. She prayed to the Warrior and to the Mother, to the Maiden and the Father. She hoped someone was listening.

She studied him closely now, letting her gaze linger at the dusting of dark hair across his chest and how it seemed to trail downwards, where the blanket was pulled just above his navel. She watched the dense cords of muscle flex in his forearms as he dreamt. She wanted to touch his scars. The slashes were abundant and they pained her each time she scrutinized new ones. A burn on his arm made her chest feel tightened and uncomfortable, and a slash under his collarbone made her feel sick. She knew that one had been aimed for his head. There were evenly spaced pink scars on his bicep, curious wounds that seemed in alignment but out of time with each other. The foremost one was nearly faded, and the lowest, nearest to the crook of his arm, was raised pink. She couldn’t help herself and reached out to trace them.

Sandor’s hand shot out and grasped her wrist, enclosing completely around it. His eyes were still closed, but his low sleepy voice mumbled at her, “Stop.”

She gasped and he opened his eyes, blinking a few times as his eyes adjusted. He slowly turned his head towards to look at her sleepily.

“What the bloody hell happened to me? I only took a knife to the chest, I shouldn’t feel as if I’ve been trampled by horses.”

Sansa’s lower lip trembled and she felt her eyes welling. She looked at the ceiling to stopper the tears, but when she looked back down at Sandor they fell anyway. She dropped her face in her hands and quietly cried, feeling her shoulders shake.

“I’m alright, little bird, I’m alright,” he said as he leaned up, groaning at the effort. He placed his hand on the back of her neck to pull her forehead to his, and held them together there for a moment. Sansa slowly stopped crying, and sniffled as she raised her head to hold the heels of her palms to her eyes and draw in a shuddering breath.

“Here, girl, help get this thing off me.” He gestured to the bandage, “I want to see what damage has been done.”

He clasped his hands behind his head and waited as Sansa untied the knot securing the bandage. She carefully rolled it away from her and reached her other arm around his chest in a strange embrace to bring it forwards to her again. She continued this, unwinding and unraveling, feeling his breath hitch when she let her fingers trail against his sides. She drew nearer to where the cloth had stuck to his skin in the dried blood and he hissed through his teeth as she gently peeled it free. A short but thick vertical line and several stitches was revealed.

Sandor poked at it, frowning. “Where’s the knife?” he asked.

Sansa looked around her and not seeing it, stood to look on the table and then at the hearth. She found it, and noticing it had been cleaned of Sandor’s blood, she brought it to him and sat back down beside him on the floor facing his pallet. He inspected the handle and turned so that the blade caught some of the glowing morning light.

“Do you know anything of who wielded this?” he rasped quietly, the small knife dwarfed in his broad palms.

Sansa paused, nervously and cautiously choosing her words. “I…asked a beggar girl what she had seen.”

“And?”

“And…she said to tell you that she remembers where the heart is.”

Sandor’s head snapped up, grey eyes flashing and fearsome in his hardened expression. “ _And_?” he asked fiercely.

“And she said that she could have hit it had she wanted to,” Sansa finished in a whisper, still rattled by the encounter.

“Did you see her face?” he asked.

Sansa nodded silently, staring at his pulse moving rapidly in his throat.

“Who was it?” he demanded.

“It was…no one,” Sansa said apologetically, tears beginning to roll down her face again.

Sandor’s expression softened and he leaned against the wall. The tense moment swiftly diffused and his breathing slowed as he calmed down. He observed Sansa, who was biting her lip and still quite nervous.

“Come here, girl.” Sandor reached for her upper arm and pulled her into him. She curled against his side, with her hands tucked under her chin and her knees pulled over his thigh. Her head rested lightly on his shoulder as his arm wrapped around her. He stroked her lightly down from her ribs to her waist and back again, and she was comforted by his warm hand there. He brought his other hand to hold her head against his collarbone, and kissed her hair softly.

Where the night before had dragged into an eternity when he was resting, this moment became ephemera. There was a knock at the door. Sansa intuitively and reluctantly untangled herself from Sandor before smoothing her hair and standing to walk to the table, where she seated herself. “Come in, please,” she called.

The door opened a peep and Brother Hobb poked his head in. He must have expected some other arrangement for Sansa and Sandor because his face betrayed surprise when he saw Sansa calmly seated and Sandor sitting upright on the pallet. He recovered and hastily entered, while Brother Dobromil followed with a tray of black bread and boiled eggs that he placed in front of Sansa before taking a plate to hand to Sandor.  

The room had become bright and sunny. Brother Dobromil cleared his throat. “My lady. I hope you managed some rest as well.”

Sansa became aware of her appearance at that moment and felt shy at how close she’d sat to Sandor. She wondered if she looked acceptable. She forgot to acknowledge the septon, who was still waiting for her to reply.

“There was a child outside. She’s been asking people who enter the inn about the red-haired lady,” Dobromil continued.

“Oh!” Sansa exclaimed, standing. “Yes, yes, her…” and she rushed out rather rudely.

The little girl was on the same stone steps of the bakery, watching the inn’s entrance. Sansa hazarded a glance towards the statue, but she saw no faceless beggar. She saw no one.

The little girl hopped off the steps and rushed to Sansa, who knelt before her.

“Did you do as I asked?”

“He say coming,” the little one said, nodding.

“You are a very good and clever girl.” Sansa hugged her before reaching into her coin purse and deciding to pull out five. She dropped them into the girl’s hands and greatly enjoyed her widened eyes before the girl turned and scampered back towards the bakery, calling out for her mother.

It wasn’t until midday when a litter arrived, and Sansa said their farewells to the kindly septons on behalf of herself and for Sandor, who was cursing loudly at having to be carried. When they were seated inside Sansa almost immediately fell asleep, lulled by the even steps of the guards and the sunlight streaming hot through the silken curtains. She sat opposite Sandor, and managed a weak smile as she slumped over into the brightly colored and embroidered satin cushions. He nearly smiled back at her, and nudged her with his foot.

“Sleep, little bird.” He rumbled sternly.

She was already taking that turn though, and his low voice settled comfortably over her last clutch of consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanna take a moment to thank y'all for your kind words on the last chapter. I'm humbled and appreciative, and it's really revitalizing and encouraging to have a supportive or positive response.


	14. Chapter 14

She was underwater and dimly aware of the faraway low murmur of voices and being swept into strong arms as they reached Illyrio’s manse. She heard her own name and she heard his, and all their soft faraway voices tangled into her dreams. She raised her arms to encircle his neck and she let him carry her. His footsteps thudded softly on the carpet and it wasn’t until the doors to her bedchamber were closing softly behind them that she realized they were alone again. She struggled to surface from her exhausted sleep to say something to him. He gently set her down and grunted at the sting to his chest wound when the stitches tugged. Sleep was submerging her so she mumbled towards him as her fingers twisted in the crisp new tunic the septons had brought him.

“What is it, little bird?” he raised her chin and she squinted at him from one opened eye.

“Don’t go yet, please,” she muttered, laying her head back onto the pillows. He sighed.

“ _Please_ ,” she begged. She blinked back her sleepiness for a moment and looked at him lucidly before slowly rising to her knees on the bed to face him. When Sandor was standing beside the tall bed and she kneeling upon it, she was nearly eye level with him. “Please,” she said again in a small voice. “Please don’t go again.”

She hoped he understood the implications behind her vagueness and hoped he understood everything she was too cowardly to say. She hoped he didn’t think she was some sniveling and frightened child.

He scowled slightly, seeming exasperated and leaving Sansa feeling crestfallen. Instead of leaving though, he walked to the window bench and sat on it, slumping against the wall with his legs splayed. Sansa layed back down.

“Thank you,” she expressed gently. He grunted, folding his arms.

She slept again, feeling safe for the first time since he’d reached for her hand the evening before; before the knife found its way into his chest in the instant her back was turned. She dreamed of alley cats, or of being one—she wasn’t sure. She was then a small and scuttling thing, crossing the silty seabed floor. She was looking at herself, at her messy hair and the blood on her dress. The blood on her slippers. She was facing herself. She saw seas of unfamiliar faces fly past, some howling and anguished; and others contented, contending for peace. She awoke with a start, sitting straight up in bed as soon as her limbs remembered how.

Sandor had his arms folded still while he tilted his head back against the wall where he was dozing. He opened one eye, and then the other, before clearing his throat and rubbing his hands over his face and standing. It was evening again.

“Get up, girl. You’ll get not a wink of sleep tonight as it is.” He made for the door.

“No, Sandor, please, wait—" she cut herself off when she heard herself begging.

He turned to look at her. “I need to eat, little bird. You do too. And you"—he pointed, nearing—“need to change out of that damn dress.”

She remembered, mortified, and looked down. She was still wearing the ruined dress and probably appeared frightful, like some wildling woman. Her hand covered her shocked mouth. Unwelcome tears welled in her eyes.

“It’s not that serious, girl, calm yourself. It’s a bloody fucking dress. Illyrio has gifted you a wardrobe full of them.” He gestured behind them, towards the changing screen.

Sansa dropped her hand from her mouth long enough to choke out, “I’m wearing your blood!” and covering her mouth again as she tried not to cry. His expression softened but he didn’t come nearer.

“I’ve had far worse injuries than this, girl.” He patted his chest wound and his wry smile curled into a cruel one that twisted his burns. “I promise you, I will be alright. I’m not leaving your service just yet.”

Sansa wiped her eyes. _Why did he say it like that? When is he planning on leaving me?_

She reached behind herself to tug at the entwined ribbons holding the dress taut and struggled as she rose from the bed to stumble behind the changing screen. She assumed Sandor would leave at this point, but was sincerely relieved when the noises of the door swishing open and shut never came to announce his exit. She soaked a cloth in a washbasin filled with cool rosewater and dragged it across her skin. Droplets of water spattered to the floor as she splashed her face. She discarded her shift and smallclothes and stood shivering, more from nerves and the quiet presence beyond the screen, than from a chill. She reached into the wardrobe at random, pulling a diaphanous pink gown that was to be tied about the neck and fit loosely, draping comfortably over her curves. Her arms and shoulders would be bare. She couldn’t tie the bow behind herself and strode out from behind the screen with it still undone, her hands holding the straps up. Sandor was sitting on the foot of her bed, his feet resting on the bench beneath it.

“Could you please help?” she asked, keeping her head ducked as her hands struggled behind her.

“Sit.” He commanded without hesitation, and she sat between his legs on the bench in front of him. She held the straps behind her head until his hands took them from her and he deftly tied them in some manner of knot she could not see.

His hands lingered, hovering an inch above her shoulders.

She turned her head to the side, and then, after a second pause, turned to look back up at him. She arranged her face in what she hoped was an imploring expression. She didn’t truthfully know what she wanted; she just knew he would be the one to provide it.

He grasped her arm and raised her ‘til she turned and stood facing him. He paused. She took the moment to raise her gaze to his and decipher his expression. His eyes were concentrated and his breath came quicker than she thought normal. He was looking at her as if she were something to be consumed. He only stared at her, though, a hand resting on his formidable thigh.

Abruptly he reached out and tugged hard on the back of her knee, causing her to buckle and lose her balance. Her hands shot out to grab him for support and when she did this, he pulled her towards him and into his lap. She parted her folded knees to settle on either side of his legs and blushed at how she was sitting. She knew full well it was inappropriate. She timidly looked at him, but his steely grey eyes were full of such intensity that they made hers flutter down to look at his hands resting on her hips. She had her hands placed lightly against his chest and slowly raised one to his face, noticing too late that she had moved to cup his burns. He winced and flinched away from her, his hand grabbing her diminutive wrist.

“I’m sorry,” Sansa quickly whispered, although she knew neither why she whispered nor why she was sorry. His burns couldn’t possibly bring him physical pain after these many years. He said nothing but took both of her wrists and brought them behind his neck.

“Keep them there,” he muttered.

She nodded. _Can he feel how quickly my heart beats?_

His hands began a slow descent from the soft planes of her waist down to her hips. His thumbs rolled over the delicate jut of her hipbones and his touch dawned over the outsides of thighs to her knees and back again. Sansa’s breath quickened.

He passed his coarse and calloused hands down her shoulders and over her arms to where they were linked behind his neck. He brought his warm hands forward to place on either side of Sansa’s face and she decided that she didn’t mind the roughness of his hands one bit. She released her arms to touch him more and leaned in for a kiss, when he grabbed her wrists again.

“What did I say?” he growled.

“To…keep my arms there?” she queried, gingerly placing them back behind his neck. He nodded and she saw a hint of a smile he tried to hide from her. She hinted back one of her own but flushed underneath her shyness and dropped his gaze. His hands covered her breasts and she inhaled sharply. His fingers lightly trailed over her nipples and traced the undersides of her breasts before they caressed her stomach. She arched her back and pressed herself into his hands.

“Seven hells, Sansa,” he swore, fingers digging into her waist.

She felt as if she were in dire need of something to ebb her overflow or maybe evade an inevitable undertow. She still had no idea what she was in search of. She wriggled in his lap and he raised an eyebrow at her, chuckling. He shook his head and gently lifted her from him. “That’s enough, little bird,” he said as he patted her bottom.

She froze, feeling the suffuse of hot shame creep up redly from between her shoulders and up her neck. “What?” she squeaked, but he was already opening the door and the light from the candelabras in the hallway spilled into the now-dark room. She heard his rasping laughter until he reached the end of the hall.

She had angrily pouted in her room until handmaids surreptitiously knocked on her door, fetching her to sup with Illyrio and Varys. She composed herself and combed her hair before joining them, and once she did she found she enjoyed herself. She drank wine to scatter the tension settled low in her belly and soon she had supped and wined until she wasn’t thinking of Sandor constantly. They had eaten another magnificent dinner, with boiled potato cubes swimming in a sauce of saffron and cream along a roast suckling pig with meat so savory and tender it nearly melted as it touched your tongue. Sansa realized she hadn’t eaten in nearly a day and apologized pre-emptively to the lords as she explained she was hungry enough to eat like Sandor, which elicited a raucous laugh from them both. Varys was curious about her evening in the inn and they demanded a great many details, which would have made Sansa nervous had the two men not been wide-eyed and shocked with such gratifying open-mouthed reactions.

Very late at night Sansa finally lay in bed, with the balcony doors open and the curtains fluttering in the breeze. She had bathed after her supper and been given sip after sip of Tyroshi pear brandy to enjoy as she soaked in the steaming water. It was the most decadent and outrageous thing she’d ever done. She smiled in the darkness, mentally contrasting the bath to sitting in Sandor’s lap and wondering which was truly the top contender. Her head was swimming but she propped herself up on one elbow to blow out the candle beside her bed. She flounced backwards and sprawled her long limbs widely across the luxurious bed. She felt silken and clean and full. _And cherished_ , she added, thinking of the man who’d held her close momentarily before getting spooked and fleeing yet again. How lucky she was, to have friends and have her health.

 _And your life_ , came a precipitously dark thought.

She was definitely drunk. She exhaled noisily, feeling the room sway a bit.

She had begun to doze off in the velvet darkness when she heard a slight rustling sound. She imagined it was the wind moving something in the room and closed her eyes again, regaining her relaxation.

The noise occurred again and her eyes shot open. It was a human sound and it was deliberate. The haze of wine lifted with the clarity of fear and she held her breath to listen hard for the sound once more. She lay perfectly still, too afraid to move.

She heard a soft thump, like someone dropping to land at their feet.

Someone or something was in her bedchambers. _Do I dare scream?_ she thought wildly. _Is this Sandor?_

She felt paralyzed in the darkness, which now felt oppressive. She could hear the quiet footsteps moving now, stepping lightly through the strangling darkness. _Not Sandor_.

Sansa was too afraid to turn her head to look lest the intruder know she was actually awake. Her heart thrummed an erratic rhythm and she was now too fearful to scream and gasp and cry out so she lay trapped by paralytic terror. She heard the intruder near the foot of her bed and her fright reached a fever pitch, still unable to move in the black room but her eyes darting wildly left and right. She was so terrified that she honestly didn’t know if she could make her limbs move had she willed it.

“Wh-who’s there?” she choked out in a petrified whisper.

Nothing. No one.

Perhaps this was a nightmare. Maybe this was just a horrible dream. She sat up straight in bed, heart pounding painfully and a nervous sheen of sweat on her upper lip. “Who’s there?” she whispered again.

A robust breeze ruffled the curtains, lifting them at their split and letting silver moonlight cascade into the room for an agonizing moment.

The faceless beggar girl was standing next to Sansa’s bed and staring at her.

The curtain gently drifted shut and they were plunged into darkness again.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! i am sososo sorry for takin so long to get this out. I struggled a lot with this chapter because it's so expositional. i hope it isn't boring and if it is, i'm sorry, it's a necessary step for everything else that needs to happen! thank you and plz forgive me <3

An instinct kicked in within an instant and in seconds Sansa had thrown back the covers and was scrambling to flee. A cold and clammy hand reached from behind her and grabbed her ankle, dragging her back across the bed. _Elbow_ , she remembered, and thrust hers backwards into what she hoped was where the other girl’s face was. She felt a satisfying jolt of pain when it connected hard with the girl’s neck. The beggar girl coughed and swore and let go of Sansa, who had righted herself and torn towards the doors. The other girl was walking towards her, rubbing her hand across her neck. Sansa flung the doors open.

“SANDOR!!” she cried, as loudly as she could before her hair was yanked sharply backwards. She howled as she was hauled to her back by a fistful of hair. She balled her hands into fists and swung haphazardly at the enemy she could not yet see.

She swung her arms around through the darkness, patting the rug, eyes watering at the hard yanking of her hair. When her hands connected with the other girl’s shins, she wrapped her arms tightly around them until she felt the beggar girl’s balance was lost, and she went tumbling to the carpet, letting go of Sansa’s hair. Sansa quickly straddled her, her knees pinning the girl’s arms captive. She swung hard and felt a gratifying pain when her fist met jaw, and made it move.

The beggar girl swore and struggled, and Sansa would have noticed the utterance of her name if the double doors hadn’t been thrown open violently, spilling them in a wash of lamplight. Sandor was standing in the doorway, sword released and in hand. He was breathing heavily. Behind him were several guards with tin lanterns in their raised hands, as well as Varys, who was clutching the front of his robe closed and looking quite alarmed.

Sandor strode towards her, sheathing his sword to Sansa’s dismay. When he reached where the two girls were, he grasped Sansa's arm and roughly hauled her upright.

“What are you doing?” she sputtered, livid, and attempted to pull free from his vise grip. When her eyes met his, she was shocked to find his expression of utter confoundment. She looked back at the beggar girl, who was standing and gently patting her bloody nose, wincing.

Sansa yanked her arm away from Sandor and smoothed her hair; fixed her nightgown. “I remembered my elbows.”

Sandor suppressed a smile. “That’s all good and fine, little bird, but did you have to wail on your sister so savagely?” 

Sansa’s chest restricted and she looked back at the strange beggar girl, who was staring at her plaintively.

“Sandor, you’ve forgotten what Arya looks like.” Sansa spoke shakily.

“Like hell I have. I last saw the wolf-bitch sooner than you, if you recall,” he countered quickly.

“Sansa, it’s me,” the beggar girl spoke. “Please see me.”

Sansa looked back at Sandor, who gave her a small nod of assurance. She stepped lightly towards the other girl and scrutinized her face.

The other girl spoke as she approached, “I remember Bran and Rickon and Robb and Jon. I saw Father executed on the stone steps on the sept by Ser Illyn Payne. I was there,” she all but whispered.

“Our lady mother is Catelyn,” she continued once Sansa was standing in front of her. “Your direwolf was named Lady…Father killed her. He slit her throat. The Hound was there.” She pointed towards where he stood. “The Hound butchered the butcher’s boy,” she finished meanly.

Sansa stared at her face, but much like before, it flickered and frightened her. Sansa clasped her hands together in front of her stomach, suddenly feeling qualmish and unwell.  She looked for Arya’s face in the beggar girl’s, and the more she did, the more she seemed to see it. Sometimes a part of Arya would float to the surface, but Sansa still couldn’t tell if she were willing it or not.

“Why…why can’t I see her?” Sansa asked tremulously, turning back to face Sandor and Varys.

“I don’t know.” Sandor rasped softly. “But that’s her, little bird. I’d never lie to you.”

“I know why,” Varys quietly added, coming nearer. He smiled at the beggar girl. “What is this one’s name?” he asked, his face awash in pity.

“Diot,” the girl answered.

Varys nodded and motioned Sansa forward. She hesitated, but walked closer to them nonetheless.

“Sansa, you see Diot, while Lord Clegane and I see Arya,” he softly explained.

Sansa was bewildered. The room was so quiet now that she could hear the blood rushing in her ears.

“I can see her true face because I have been tainted already by blood magic, a boyhood tragedy I’m known for.” He gestured towards himself and Sansa darkly did understand. She had always wondered how Varys had become a eunuch, and she felt a rush of sickness in the dawning knowledge of what he spoke.

“There are five factions of magic,” he murmured apologetically as he went on. “Life, death, fire, water, and blood magics.” He ticked them off his fingers. “I am stained by blood.” He turned towards the Diot creature.

“But this one has met death,” he said, smiling joylessly at her. Diot’s eyes fell.

“Which is such a pity, because Starks carry the blood of the First Men, who had always been known for their magic of life. Greenseers, skinchangers, children of the forest, my dear girls, I’m sure you and your old gods understand. Your children’s children will still carry it through their veins.”

“The effects of one magic will always refute the effects of another. It is a law of our existence.” He reached for Sansa’s hand, and clasped it between his soft ones. “Not every generation receives the gifts of their ancestors. I’m sorry, sweet Sansa. You cannot see through the magic she wears.”

“What about him?” Diot demanded rudely, pointing to Sandor. “Why can he see my true face?”

Sandor stood a little straighter, scowling.

“One guess as to what magic he’s been tortured with.” Varys whispered to Sansa, as if they possessed a shared joke.

Sandor reached the answer before she had caught up, and sneered at Varys. “Bugger that, you useless eunuch. I don’t give a single damn for your unholy nonsense,” he seethed. “No matter the twisted, delusional tale you spin prettily for the Stark girls, this” he pointed towards his twisted scars, rendered even more grotesque in his fury, “is not a bloody _magic spell_.”

In his rage, he’d advanced on Varys until he was chest to chest with the man, towering over him dauntingly.

Varys took a delicate step back and bestowed a tight-lipped smile to Sandor. “No?” he queried gently of the large man. “You’ve never questioned your luck in your life since your face was given to the fire? You’ve never received unexpected sums of wealth of opportunity?”

Sansa thought of the Hand’s Tourney. She thought of how a non-knight, a second son of a minor house, had become the sworn shield to the Prince of Westeros. She could tell Sandor had considered it too, by the way his face had dropped its mask of undiluted anger slightly. He shook his head, bringing it back into place, settling the angered expression once again. “So?” he sneered.

Varys yawned daintily and rubbed his small hands across his face. “Lord Clegane, let me express it in more ways before we vow to resume this discussion on daybreak. The night is dark and full of terrors, after all,” he jested. “Have you ever lived when you shouldn’t? Did death ever come to take you and refuse you instead?”

Sandor paled, his face cloaked in grim understanding. Varys beamed at him, pleased with their mutual conclusion. He walked to the front of the room, where he gathered a tin lamp from a quiet guard at the door, and begin to wave them away. They dispersed evenly. Varys waited until the last of their flickering lantern glow left the long hall’s wall.  He turned back to Sandor.

“Fire cast a spell on you, ser. Do you think you earned being the fiercest warrior in the Seven Kingdoms?” he chuckled, adjusting his robe. “Surely you cannot think that your skill and size is something you have personally reaped?”

Sansa felt uncomfortable, suddenly. She wondered if Varys were taunting Sandor deliberately.

“Everything you are, and everything you have, good and bad—you owe to fire. Think on that,” Varys added.

“My lord, please. I should think it is time for us all to dispel these notions of magics long enough to sleep tonight,” Sansa interjected, albeit politely.

Varys bowed his head and acquiesced. “As always, dear child, you are wise beyond your years. I shall take Diot to find quarters for the evening.” He walked past Sandor, and thinking twice, stopped to whisper something in his ear. Sansa watched Sandor’s jaw tense in response, but he did not look away from Sansa. Varys waited at the door for Diot to follow him. 

“Goodnight, Lady Sansa. We will speak more as we break our fast,” Varys said, and Sansa gave a nod in response.

Varys ushered Diot out, who turned back one last time to stare balefully at Sansa.

The room darkened with the lessened lantern light, and she looked at Sandor helplessly. His face was grave, his eyes tangling in turmoil and his lips set in a tense line. He remembered her, suddenly, and looked at her as he resurfaced and refocused. He opened his mouth to say something, but hesitation consumed it and he scowled instead, while turning to leave.

“Don’t,” Sansa called. “Please don’t make me beg.”

He turned in the doorway, exasperated. He waited for her to speak while he rested one hand on the doorframe and Sansa eyed his silhouette, appreciative of his powerful frame.

“Please don’t go,” Sansa amended, whispering. “Not on this night.”

He grimaced, and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He ran his rough hand down his face, causing a course whisper over his beard stubble. Sansa could tell he was nearly convinced.

“I will beg if I have to,” she said gravely, though her eyes betrayed mirth. The burned corner of Sandor’s mouth twitched.

Sansa sighed, and made as if to take to her knees, but Sandor was there swiftly, his lantern lowered and his free arm lifting her to stand again. She smiled at him, unsurely at first. She took the lantern and placed it atop the bedside table, near her candle. She pulled it free and lit it anew, placing it back into the votive. Sandor was still standing where she’d left him, and Sansa’s heart splintered. _How broken he must feel_ , she reasoned, as she reached for his hand to draw him towards her bed. _To have his life so neatly reduced, by the one thing he truly fears no less._

She felt determined to help him, although she knew him well enough now to know he’d never talk about it with her or bother articulating his dark feelings.

He sat on the edge of the bed, with his back to her, facing the door. She felt a rising fury at that moment towards Varys on Sandor's behalf. _How dare he abate the Hound’s accomplishments_ , _How dare he lessen this man’s self-worth_ , she inwardly seethed, _when this warrior already lacked an abundance of it._  

She placed her hand on his powerful back, half-afraid he’d snarl and shake her off. The other half of her hoped he would, as his anger was at least recognizable. When he didn’t react, she knelt behind him and wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, pulling herself flush against his back in a tight embrace. She leaned her head against his.

“Sometimes I have to convince myself that I am not unwanted,” Sansa spoke softly, feeling her breath stir his dark hair. He reached up and put his warm hand over her forearm crossing his chest. She hugged him tighter. “I was sent away from home to marry a prince. I went willingly, but I was sent away all the same.”

Sandor pulled himself from her arms and held her wrists in his hands as he turned to look at her. She smiled sadly. 

“And from there, I was cast off. Discarded. Unwanted, until Littlefinger stole me away. Again, I went willingly. At least I think I did. I wanted to be somewhere with family and where I was wanted.”

She felt embarrassed at the tremor in her voice as she continued. Crying was not the way to help the Hound. She steeled herself and ignored her tears, speaking evenly through them. 

“His want wasn’t what I wanted. He wanted a woman, I was a girl who wanted her father.” She paused as Sandor’s thumb gently wiped a tear away. He cradled her face. 

“So he discarded of me, as well. Sent me away, to the Quiet Isle. And you know the story from there,” she japed, smiling at him and sniffling and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I was sent away again. And I will be, again and again. But I always go, because it’s easier to let the tide take you than pull against it. And besides,” she whispered, “I just want to feel wanted.” She laughed a little, staring at her hands now laying in his. “I just want to feel loved and needed.”

She looked up at him suddenly, eyes bright. “I’m a beggar.” She added, “A beggar of affection.” Sandor scoffed and she smiled, giggling a little. “A little bird, moved from cage to cage. Waiting for the right family.”

She laughed still, but tears streamed down her face steadily. “My father dead, my mother dead, my brothers murdered…” she exhaled shakily, a bitter smile still in place. They were quiet for a moment. She shook herself, blinking tears away and composing herself.

“I’m sorry.” She smiled sweetly at him. “I didn’t mean to unleash my torrential sadness on you so selfishly. I’m a stupid girl.”

“Don’t do that,” he quietly growled, startling her.

“Don’t do what?” 

“Call yourself stupid.”

“But you call me stupid nearly every day.” 

“Yes, but the difference is that I don’t mean it.”

She nodded in concession, amused.

He began a smile. “And besides,” he added. “It’s not a habit I should keep. I’m the idiot. Snarling, growling dog, distrusting the single juiciest bone ever thrown in his direction.”

Sansa laughed, her tension diffusing. Sandor grinned back at her.

“What did Varys whisper to you as he left?” Sansa asked, but he sighed and looked away. He wasn’t going to tell her. His expression darkened as the silence prolonged.

Sansa, thinking quickly, strode to her dressing table. The polished obsidian backing gave her a clear reflection of the room and she was glad that Sandor curiously watched her. She rifled through the contents of the tray there, upturning glass jars of hair pins and assorted vanities. She found what she was looking for and felt herself smile despite the night, in a final triumph.

She unscrewed the top of the painted pot and dipped her finger in the dark kohl. She leaned into the obsidian mirror and smudged some on the tip of her nose.

“What in the seven hells are you doing, girl?” Sandor asked.

Sansa started laughing as she drew evenly spaced lines on her cheeks. She finished and turned to face him, still giggling, the paint pot still in her palm and her fingertips blackened with still-wet kohl. “I’m a cat!” she exclaimed and felt rewarded by Sandor’s hands raising to cover his laughing face. She’d painted whiskers on herself.

Sandor covered his smile with both hands and looked at her from beneath his fingers. “Why did you do that?”

 _I didn’t like being compared to a juicy bone_ , she thought.

“I didn’t know how to paint myself as a bird,” she answered instead, giggling and returning to the bed. She sat beside him where he lay. She unlaced the top of his tunic and swatted at his hand when he tried to stop her. He folded one arm back to lay on and watched her. 

“Is it here?” she asked him, patting the right side of his bared chest.

He rumbled, “You already know where the heart is, little bird.” 

She smiled down at him. “Show me anyway.”

He took her finger and brought it across his chest, stilling it directly adjacent to his new scar in the middle of his chest.

Sansa took her middle finger and smudged the remaining kohl onto his chest as she drew a heart there.

Sandor drew his chin towards his chest to see it. 

“It’s right here,” she explained as she finished the other half of the heart. She enclosed his new scar inside it. “It’s right here, and it’s whole.” She tapped it for emphasis.

“No matter if it may feel shattered or incomplete, as long as it’s beating, you are still a man. A whole one.” She couldn’t tell if she was seeing the candlelight flicker in his eyes or if it was something else. 

“Fire magic didn’t create you, it _cursed_ you. All that you are, all that you became, it was despite the fire, not due to it.” She spoke plainly, worried that she’d anger him or stumble on her meaning. “Varys called you the fiercest warrior in the Seven Kingdoms, but it wasn’t because your brother gifted this to you when he held your face to the fire.” Sandor flinched at her words, looking away from her.

“Careful, girl,” he grumbled as a warning.

She drew his face towards her again, refusing to let him look away. “You became the Hound because you were stronger than him,” she insisted, as she held her hand over his scars. He looked furious and it made her nervous. “Certainly too strong to let a cockless cur convince you that you owe your very existence to your wretched brother and the horrific burn he inflicted upon you.” She finished, scandalized at her very words. She meant them, but she knew she’d feel a terrible guilt the next day as she faced Varys.

“Come here,” Sandor commanded quietly, pulling her towards his chest.  “I can’t take you seriously with your face painted like that.”

Sansa laughed, embarrassed. She'd forgotten.

She lay against his chest, and after a single moment’s hesitation, began to trace the heart she’d drawn on his chest.

“Such pretty words,” he muttered, wrapping one arm around her back as his other combed through her hair.

Their movements stilled and Sansa thought he had gone to sleep. When the low rumble of his voice moved his chest beneath her head, it jolted her.

“I believe him, little bird. It makes sense somewhat,” he whispered bitterly, stilling her when she made to speak against him. “Especially the parts about the Starks. Life magic.”

Sansa raised her head from his chest to face him. She rested her chin on her hand, mindful of his scars. He spoke to the ceiling first, searching for his words there.

“After all, from the moment I lay eyes on you,” he croaked, “You breathed a new life into me.”

He rolled Sansa so that they were laying next to each other on their sides. “What else could that be,” he rasped, “if not magic?”

 _Love isn’t magic_ , Sansa thought. Another part of her wondered if it was.

“You sound like a song, Sandor,” she gently teased.

“You'd be my favorite tune to sing,” he scoffed back.

They fell asleep as that, side by side, knees together and foreheads nearly touching. If one were to view them from above, a lopsided heart could perhaps be imagined in the pattern of their bodies. His large form becomes half the heart; half a heart made of powerful sinew and muscle perfectly honed and toned by violence and bloodshed, curling towards her lithe little body with her long slender limbs drawn in an exact reflection of his to complete the heart. 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> K SO it's been over a year since I've updated this. I'm the worst. I'm sorry. This year I wrote a book (!! (the main character is a red head teen girl with a sword, so)) i have been busy writing other things. alsooooo, i don't want this story to end. i've been writing it for literal years and tbh, i could live here forever, like, right on that thrilling precipice of will-they or won't-they. it is just, like, deliciously agonizing for me. but i now know how this here fic ends and i'm just, yeah...i'm so sorry i haven't updated and i am so thankful and blown away that people read this junk wtf you're so nice and i am utterly undeserving

Sandor was laying in an overlarge hammock, swaying gently as the river boat glided through the eerily still waters. He was watching Sansa and Arya. The girls were laying on their stomachs, heads close together and whispering conspiratorially as they thumbed through the giant leather tome the Elder Brother had bestowed to Sansa before their departure. They were encased in a gauzy mosquito tent, edges staked with reeds to the raft, lest it flap in the wind.

 _The absent blasted wind_ , Sandor thought grimly as he sat up to halfheartedly stoke the brazier. He swatted an insistent cloud of biting flies. They had been aboard the _Smith’s Arm_ , a single-masted poleboat for two weeks now. They drifted through the Little Rhoyne with the assistance of a wizened, craggy old polemaster who called himself Happy. Happy had no teeth, which was all the better to cluck his tongue as he peered out from under the wide brim of his flat straw hat at the still waters of the Little Rhoyne, stretching ahead of them like a stagnant silver ribbon, shining through the fog.

Before they’d left Pentos, Illyrio had warned them of the cursed waters of the Rhoyne and the affliction it carried. Happy squawked and flapped his arms over "Garin’s Curse" as he called it, but as they’d passed by the mossy, rotted remnants of sunken ships, with masts still sticking up out of the waters like accursed thorns, Sandor had less bravado in the face of superstition.

They traveled by night, when the the fog was so thick that they could keep the torches lit, tamping them down only if Happy heard another boat coming. Sometimes he’d call out to the unseen watercraft, speaking in a code of what they’d passed and what’s to come up the river. Once the code had been intercepted, and Happy had calmly steered the poleboat under a weeping willow as Sandor dashed the torches out in river water and snapped at the girls to get inside the one-room cabin, the poleboat’s only cover. They stood and waited, silent as stone, as a decorated barge crawled the waters to discover them. The same bloody fog that had impeded their progress had enveloped them safely, and the pirates had finally allowed the waters to drift their craft downstream again.

When the sunrises appeared, they’d push further upriver until they found a quay, where they’d stop and sleep while Sandor kept watch. Sandor slept nights, for short amounts of time, in his damned hammock while mosquitoes gnawed at him.

Once, Sansa had knelt at the poleboat’s edge to dip her hand into the water and drink, and Sandor had roared at her, yanking her back from the water in a way he knew hurt her, but he couldn’t stop. _Grey scale commonly afflicts children_ , Illyrio had warned him. _So be sure to watch the girls closely._

So he had. In one night, Sandor had gone from Sansa’s shield to playing at nursemaid to the two Stark girls. With the addition of Arya to their journey, Sandor increased his distance to Sansa tenfold. They’d barely spoken two sentences to each other.

Sandor absently scratched at the now-itchy scar on his chest. He wasn’t sure if he was more afraid of Arya, or of being the sort of man to prey on children, but either way, Sansa had first reacted with hurt to his aloofness, and then disdain, and finally onto acceptance and coolness. She now ignored him as he ignored her. After initial wariness (that, truth be told, reminded Sandor of dogs first snarling then sniffing at each others’ arseholes), Sansa had warmed to her wolf-bitch sister and together they poured over that book with a focused, deliberate intensity.

They had been floating along for three days more when they stopped for the morning at a rambling old stone quay beside the river. There were a few broken homesteads scattered about across the river, and Sandor could see the watchful, wary eyes of inhabitants peering through. The sun had begun its slow decline, sinking low into the horizon and signaling their time to make haste once more.

The girls had left the raft in search of a bath, and Happy had pointed them to wells just across the narrow dirt road. Sandor had scanned the small area and finding nothing more dangerous than horse flies and tadpoles, he turned back. It was close enough by that Sandor felt comfortable giving them leave to bathe unattended, choosing to keep a watchful eye over Happy in case the ancient polemaster was in secret a lecherous toad who wanted to watch young girls bathe.

Sandor stepped off the raft to retrieve them, crossing the scant distance away quickly. He heard a splash and a giggle, and with a sinking feeling, he paused. Hating himself, he quietly stepped off the road and walked to the side, where copse of trees offered some shroud of darkness. He stood behind a thick cypress and peered out slowly. The blue sky was now heartily tinged with pink and and rose gold as dusky clouds drifted overhead. Sansa’s bare back was turned towards the sheltering trees. She raised the soap bar to her hair, and scrubbed. She flipped her hair over, spraying water everywhere, including across Arya, who was dressed and perched on a rock to dry with her knees drawn up to her chest. Sandor saw the sides of Sansa's breasts as she giggled and turned, saying something to her sister. He grew so painfully hard at that point that he didn’t know which could be worse, leaving to take care of his hardness and missing the rest of the show, or the inevitable agony he’d endure should he stay to watch the rest of it unsated.

He chose to return to the poleboat cabin in a hurry, nearly slamming the door behind him in the process. He unlaced his breeches quickly and jerkily, and once he had himself in hand, it took a few quick and hard strokes to bring him to release, and he spilled on the carpet. He breathed heavily, and glanced at the woven rug beneath his feet. Seeing nothing to clean his seed with, he frowned and flipped the small rug over.

“We makin’ to Selhorys by middle sun,” Happy called out to him happily in his broken Common Tongue, starting Sandor as he sheepishly left the cabin. He felt unclean. Sansa, striding up barefoot and beautiful, had the courtesy to respond to the news with a show of delight for Happy’s benefit, while Arya stared blankly. Sandor felt a small, silent prayer rip through him at the notion of making it through the cursed waters safely with his precious cargo. _Despite you_ , he told himself, feeling thoroughly disgraced and disgusted.

When they debarked, Happy clucked and flapped about officiously, brandishing the fine purse of jangling Volantene coins Illyrio had paid him to ensure safe passage. There were groups of women standing by the docks, leering and giggling as passengers stepped off their swaying dock and onto dry land. As Sandor passed, he saw they each had a teardrop tattooed beneath one of their eyes.

“Pleasure slaves,” he muttered in distaste, heaving one of Sansa’s heavy trunks into a wheelbarrow. One glance at Sansa, at her blanched face and tight, thin lips told him of her horror. “Pull your hoods up,” he directed the girls, and they both obliged.

Happy swing Arya’s meager sack of belongings into the wheelbarrow and pulled up the handles to begin to move, with a nod at Sansa’s other trunk. With a grunt, Sandor hoisted it atop his shoulder.

One of the pleasure slaves called out something to Sandor as he stalked down the gangplank, which resulted in resounding cackles from her cohorts.

He flushed angrily, scowling as he stomped past them.

Happy paused, allowing Sandor to step in pace beside him as they continued into the town square.

“She says you can lift her like you lift trunk,” Happy informed him.

Sandor turned back, eyebrows raised, to look at the woman who’d called out to him. She waved and smiled, before giggling. Shaking his head, Sandor walked on.

“You thought they were making fun of you, didn’t you?” Sansa asked over her shoulder. Sandor didn’t answer her.

Happy glanced at Sandor’s scars. “Here, you are blessed.”

Sandor took his time studying the town square as they entered. There were cart merchants taking up nearly every spare stone, calling out their wares. A red priest intoned in his native tongue to the small crowd gathered around him. Sandor led, knowing his size demands a parting for path.

Sansa lowered her hood as they entered an inn, catching the attention of soldiers perched around a cyvasse board atop an overturned wine cask in the common room. They had tin cups of pale green wine in their hands and green stripes tattooed across both cheeks. One man eyed Sansa’s red hair in a way that set Sandors’ teeth on edge, and made him wish he could understand the soldier’s foreign mumbles to each other as they watched her pass. He’d take that one’s tiger’s head helm from him and bash his skull in with it. Bugger deserves it, the way he’s looking at her, he thought bitterly. A darker voice wondered what Sandor himself deserved for doing more than looking.

“Two rooms,” Sandor told Happy through his gritted teeth, giving him appropriate coin. Happy translated, presumably.

“And wine,” Sandor added, throwing another coin to the innkeeper. “Dark and red.”

Once their belongings were in their rooms, Sandor clutched the wine skin tightly by its neck and sat down heavily on his bed. He would sleep in a room alone tonight, with Sansa and Arya sharing the room next door. The arrangement unnerved him, and this whole stinking place had set his guts in turmoil. Not being able to see Sansa as she slept would have been out of the question if not the tight new scar on his chest that boasted Arya’s aptitude in protecting them both.

Happy had left to find his fortune in cyvasse elsewhere for the evening, and Sandor had stood outside the girls’ door until he heard the bar clank shut across the door.

He opened the wineskin and squirted some into his mouth. Could he bar them in? he mused. Could he blockade the door to their room when supper was finished and they had no cause to leave it?

He was pondering having dinner sent to their room and locking them in with it when a small knock came at his door, left ajar. His stomach flipped and he cursed himself for it, because a timid knock from a soft hand had set his heart thumping like a gods-be-damned green lad.

“Aye,” Sandor called out in a deep voice after clearing his throat.

Sansa glided in, her skirts swishing slightly at her ankles. It was a sound he decided was his new favorite song. _Coming, though,_ he thought. Not going. 

“I would like to walk around the square,” Sansa told him, still hovering near the threshold of his room. Sandor didn’t blame her for not coming any closer, not the way he’d been barking at her for weeks. He wondered how they’d ever gotten so close, when her iciness towards him now felt so complete. So right. 

“That’s a bloody stupid idea,” Sandor rasped.

“Well, take it up with Magister Illyrio,” Sansa shot back primly. “It was his.”

Sandor scowled as Sansa informed him, “He thinks I should speak to people here about the dragon queen, and perchance find news to deliver to her.”

“So now you are one of Varys’ little sparrows, eh?” Sandor rumbled. “My little bird has grown up to act as a spy. Little bird to someone else.”

Sansa gave no reaction other than the slightest crease in her brow.

“Is Arya coming?” Sandor asked, sighing, a rough hand rubbing his jaw.

Sansa shook her head. “She has her own concerns. She said she would meet us by the docks by morn.”

Sandor tossed the wineskin against the wall in his anger, where it thudded and dropped with a dispassionate, ineffectual plop against the fresh rushes on the floor.

Sansa hadn’t even flinched. _She’s seen worse_ , Sandor supposed, regarding her coolly. _And felt far worse from me._

Sandor stood, bearing his weight on his good leg. “Lead the way, little bird.”

He walked behind her silently, carefully eyeing anyone who glanced under her hood as they passed through the bustling square until Sansa made a deliberate turn towards a pleasure house.

He snagged her arm and yanked her backwards to face him. “What kind of hare-brained madness is this, girl?” he growled.

Sansa stared up at him guilelessly. She blinked twice, slowly, and put her hand flat on his chest. He held on a moment longer. When he released her, she dropped her hand.

“Sandor,” she said simply, staring up at him. Her fingers reached for his, but when Sandor pulled his hand away, they fluttered back to her side and curled into a fist.

“Let me be a good man,” Sandor rasped quietly. “Let me try. I have to try.”

“But you are good. I know you are," she insisted. She paused, taking a breath. "I could have been yours, Sandor,” she told him gently, eyes beseeching his. “You had my heart in your hand and you cast it away. Why?”

When he didn’t answer, she shook her head and turned back towards the pleasure house. He yanked her back again.

“So now you seek to spread your legs for soldiers in Selhorys?” he sneered down at her. “To part your pretty little knees like you did for Baelish’s littlefinger?”

The sharp crack of her palm against his cheek was loud enough to cause passersby to stop and stare with interest at the two foreigners fighting.

Sansa stood with her back ramrod straight, blue eyes staring just past Sandor’s head. “If you ever speak to me that way again, I’ll ensure the halves of your face are made to match, Hound.” She spoke in a low tone, in a way that tore Sandor’s heart in half. He would have taken fury, he would have gladly welcomed her pounding fists on his chest or eyes glinting with fury, but this quiet, steely Stark was looking past him with a dead gaze and he knew that something had broken between them. Irrevocably. And he’d been the one to wield the axe.

“And before you paw at me more,” she told him, straightening her cloak, “I decided to go into a pleasure house to speak with the women under its employ. What seems safer?” she queried, as if asking herself. “Being surrounded by women in a pleasure house with you seated beside me, perhaps even paying for their time and conversation—women who, mind you, hear all the consecrated quiet conversation men utter in tavern-talk in front of them as if they have no ears to hear it—”

Sandor swallowed hard, feeling sick.

“—Or sitting prettily in a wine sink with drunk soldiers and travelers who would pretend I’m not there under the eyes of her scarred, hulking shield?” she spoke louder, firmly. “The only way they’d talk to me was if you weren’t there, and well, we know what happens then, don’t we?” Sansa demanded angrily. Sandor felt his blood lust mounting.

“Petyr didn’t teach me to part my knees,” she finished, regaining her quiet, eerie composure. “A fact you know well. But he did teach me that most men, honorable or not, have expectations of a young girl, as if my body is an unwritten invitation, a question they wish to answer—” she stopped, shaking her head. She took a deep breath, and finally met his gaze again.

“So I’ll take my chances with the women, if you please.” She strode away from him, and this time, Sandor let her go. He had never heard her sound so deadly.

Hours later, nearing the hour of the wolf, they hadn’t left. The pleasure slave seated on his lap had sun-lightened hair and sun-darkened skin, oiled with some thick, sweetly cloying scent that made his head spin. Or perhaps it was the wine spinning his thoughts. The tear tattooed under her eye winked as she smiled at him, like it was alive and beating upon her cheek. He raised his gaze across the bronze brazier and saw Sansa staring at him balefully, seated amongst the two pleasure slaves who spoke the Common Tongue. _Don’t look so sad, girl,_ he thought hazily. _I can’t have you._

“I would ruin you,” he drunkenly confessed out loud to Sansa, knowing full well she was too far away to hear his despondent mumbling.

He returned his attention to the girl on his lap and mumbled into her bare brown throat, “And you, oh, little bird, You sweet girl. Stupid girl. You would let me.”

Sandor raised his head again and blearily regarded the girl seated atop him, smiling down at him. He ran a thumb over her exposed breast, raising her nipple. She wriggled and smiled, shuddering, and stroked the thick ropes of his scars on his arm. She kissed the ruined side of his mouth and touched his scarred cheek lightly and it was in that moment he decided he loved her a little. She stood and held out her hand, and Sandor instinctively glanced to where the little bird had sat, and not finding her, followed the pleasure slave back into her chambers.

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [pulls out megaphone, shouts into it] E X P O S I T I O N A L FLUFF
> 
> (sorry for the short chapter, much longer one coming tomorrow!)

Her mission, if it really was that, had been a success. After paying the two whores who spoke the Common Tongue for their time, their tongues had been loosened fair enough and they spoke to Sansa at length about their nights being bought by sellswords from the Second Sons, including Captain and Commander Brown Ben Plumm.

 _Oh yes_ , Sansa swayed as she stumbled back to where she presumed the inn would still be. _Complete success._

She raised her nearly empty wineskin to the bronze statue in the square. “To Petyr,” she told it. “My lord father would be proud.” Sansa tilted her head back and drained the last of the Selhoryian sweet wine she’d been given.

“The false one,” she amended to no one in particular. “Not my actual lord father. Oh, heavens, he’d be mortified.” She giggled.

She felt a stirring in the darkness behind her, coming from the alley. She turned and stared into the void, finding only refuse heaps and buzzing midden piles.

“I must warn you,” Sansa spoke to the as yet unnamed presence in the darkness. “As helpless as I may seem, I can recall several very compelling reasons to not bring me harm. The first of which”—Sansa hiccuped politely behind her hand, taking a step backward—“is that I am _surprisingly_ pointy. And I’ve heard it can be quite painful when applied correctly. Another good reason is the _actual_ assassin I’m traveling with,” Sansa backed further away, tensing to run.

“Additionally, another reason would be my shield. Who, so you’re aware, is just SO unkind.” Sansa backed into the statue. “Cruel, really.” She shrugged goodnaturedly at the dark alley.

She paused for them to respond. They didn’t.

“Actually, allow me to submit one final reason—being that I am so _weary_ of this mummer’s farce of imminent danger, I'd like to respectfully decline your malicious intent. And _really_ , you ought to be ashamed of yourself, skulking around filthy alleys in the dark to stalk pretty young girls. It is so very, very outmoded.” Sansa threw her arms up in exasperation. “Seven hells, where is your artistry? Where is the ingenuity? Where is the bloody excitement in that?”

A dark answering chuckle melted her tension immediately.

“Arya,” Sansa sighed happily as her sister materialized from the darkness, pulling her hood down and the cowl off her face.

“You’re ridiculous,” Arya told her, but Sansa could see the fond edges of the barb and beamed back at her.

“And you’re my sister!” Sansa cried out happily, holding her arms open for an embrace. Arya rolled her eyes, shaking her head, but obliged her, before wrapping an arm around her waist and helping her back to the inn.

Sansa let her head swim pleasantly with banal platitudes and garment decisions for meeting Daenerys as her sister fumbled to help her undress in their room. Every now and then a dark undercurrent of a foul memory would threaten to resurface, but Sansa would run from it headlong, shaking her head of it. Shaking her head like dogs shake water off _..Dog..oh…_

“What sort of business does one get up to in alleys, dear sister?” Sansa chirped, holding onto Arya’s shoulders to step out of her gown. Her sister shot her a look in answer that was so disdainful, so aggrieved, so _Arya_ , that Sansa adoringly clasped her hands on either side of her sister’s face to hold that lovely novelty captive.

It had taken weeks of spending time with her in order for Arya’s face to shine through the one she’d worn. Now it was the only one Sansa could see; hardened, less horsey, but still undeniably the face worn by Arya Stark of Winterfell. Sansa confidently now considered it to be one of the most beautiful faces she’d ever beheld.  

“Right,” Sansa jested matter-of-factly, curling her lips into a sly, knowing smile, “Assassins do very many a killing thing.” Then Sansa turned and very neatly was sick all over her puddled gown.

“Noooo,” she moaned once she realized. “That was the dragon dress! I decided!”

“Seven hells,” Arya muttered, shaking off her boiled leather and breeches. Sansa answered by falling face first down onto the straw mattress, splayed as shameless as a starfish.

“Small breeches for small beetches,” Sansa mumbled into her pillow, watching Arya undress through one squinted eye. She sat upright. “Get it?” she asked Arya. “Beetches like bitch-”

“Where in seven kingdoms did you learn to curse like this?” Arya demanded, placing an empty enamel wash basin on the floor beside Sansa’s head.

Sansa rolled her eyes.

“The Hound, then,” Arya muttered, sliding into the sheets. “Where did you learn to drink like this?”

Sansa sighed and turned over, facing the wall. The movement jostled her uneasy stomach once more and she felt it lurch.

“I suppose it must be the Hound again,” Arya spat out.

“No,” Sansa breathed, screwing her eyes tightly shut. She opened them once more when she realized shutting them made the room spin. “I mean, yes, of a sort,” Sansa amended. She took a few deep breaths and steadied herself, staring up at the ceiling, which was taunting her by lazily spinning.

“It’s just, oh, Arya—” Sansa’s eyes began to well up with tears. She let them fall without wiping at them. “Have you ever played nursemaid to a heartbreak so horrid that you feel the gore of it coming out of you?”

Arya didn’t say anything.

“Turgid entrails spilling out for everyone to see,” Sansa whispered thickly through her tears. “ _So_ embarrassing.”

Arya still didn’t answer, and it only took half a heartbeat for Sansa to try again. “Have you ever been so heartbroken that you wanted to hurt yourself?” Sansa asked, her voice tremulous.

Arya smiled, and Sansa, confused, smiled back automatically although it was unsure; it was watery and wavering.

“I wanted to hurt everyone else around me,” Arya said simply.

“Oh, Arya,” Sansa said again and began crying more.

“And I did.”

“ _Oh_ , Arya.”

Arya wrapped her thin arms around Sansa in answer just as her body was wracked with sobs she couldn’t quell. Sobs for her sister’s broken heart, broken far from home. Sansa felt gratitude to be in the arms of family in the midst of her first real lovelorn broken heart, but that was an undertow compared to the floodgates of grief for her little sister, and Seven save her, her sister was laying still, bearing the brunt of Sansa’s torrential sadness as she cried.

“I am so sorry,” Sansa gasped out.

“It’s alright,” Arya assured her, stroking her hair. “You had to get drunk sooner or later.”

“No, I mean,” Sansa sat up, wiping her eyes and sniffling. She clasped Arya’s warm hand in her clammy one. “I mean, I am so _sorry_.”

“I knew what happened,” Sansa continued, “and I lied anyway. If I had told the truth, maybe Mycah would still be alive and the Hound wouldn’t be haunted near madness by the memory, maybe Lady—”

Arya clamped her hand forcefully over Sansa’s mouth, effectively silencing her.

“No. Do not do that. Do not do this to yourself. This is you wanting to cause yourself more harm. Do you understand me?” Arya asked calmly. Sansa nodded beneath her hand, which Arya cautiously released.

“It’s just that I was so horrible to you in King’s Landing—” Sansa rushed out before her sister’s hand came clamping down again.

“I know. And I was too. We were children, Sansa.”

“Whadareeow?” Sansa mumbled into Arya’s palm.

Arya let go. “What?”

“What are we now?” Sansa asked again.

Arya shrugged, flipping her pillows over to seek the cool side. “I’m a killer. You’re a lovesick, drunk, weepy—”

Sansa’s pillow landed squarely in Arya’s face.

They laid on their backs and stared up at the ceiling in silence for a beat.

Arya held her hand up in the air where Sansa could see it. “By my count, that’s one for cursing, two for drinking, and three for breaking your bloody heart,” Arya explained, holding three fingers up. “You know what that means, don’t you? That’s three strikes. That’s three strikes _today_ , Sansa.”

“Why doesn’t he love me?” Sansa whimpered piteously, a fresh crop of tears descending.

Arya shook her head incredulously, flouncing onto her side in frustration, away from Sansa. “Why do _you_ love _him_?” she asked. They didn’t speak for another long moment.

“I just don’t understand,” Sansa whispered to Arya’s back. “We were so close, Arya. We were so close to having everything we wanted, just this instance, just this one time—but he pulled back with such force that I felt the wind lash before I saw its cause.”

“We were children, Sansa.” Arya reminded her.

“I know, you said that, but—”

“Sansa, we were _children_.” Arya turned back over and faced her sister. “And he knew it, but he loved you even still. Hated himself for it, truth be told.”

“What?”

“Sansa,” Arya sighed, turning over and propping herself on one elbow. “I’ll tell you what changed. Me. I am here. I’m back, and suddenly the Hound was cast out of his little fantasy adventure with you. I’m here, and I am a glaring reminder of the night he found out you married the Imp.”

Sansa sat up straight in bed, the shock clearing cobwebs from her head.

Arya laid back down and sighed heavily, rubbing her eyes. She was clearly exhausted, and Sansa felt tremendous guilt at keeping her awake.

“Seven hells, Sansa,” Arya cursed, exasperated and waving vaguely. “He found out you got married and got good and drunk after. He fought, and got himself near killed. He could have won that fight single-handed, and by the gods old and new, I _know_ I’ve seen the bastard survive worse, I've witnessed it—but I believe the Hound truly wanted to die that night. When that fight didn't finish him, he begged me to kill him, spitting the vilest obscenities about you to goad me. This self-harm, does this remind you of anyone? Because between you two fools I’m beginning to feel like I saw this in a dream once.”

Sansa swallowed, laying back down. “You were but ten then. Weren't you?”

"Eleven," Arya corrected softly.

"Eleven." Sansa echoed in a small voice. "I was fourteen when the Imp married me." 

“We were children, Sansa,” Arya muttered into her pillow.

“Were,” Sansa echoed, thoughts dawning. She let the silence linger comfortably. 

“Arya?” she asked suddenly.

“Mmph,” Arya replied, unmoving and half-unconscious.

“I’m sorry for keeping you awake.”

“S’alright,” Arya mumbled sleepily.

Sansa paused once more, but then blinked, fighting her own sleep. “Arya?” she asked again.

“What,” Arya croaked, crabby.

“I love you,” Sansa whispered into the darkness.

“Go drink about it,” Arya complained crankily, pulling the covers over her head and curling into a ball away from Sansa.

Sansa pulled her little sister closer and hugged her, burying her face in Arya’s back. “I love you,” she whispered once more, just to be sure, before sleep blessedly overtook her. She only realized she had been smiling when she felt the ghost of it leave her lips. It was the last to go. She dreamed that night of craggy mountain stones.

 

* * *

 

Sandor had a taste so foul in his mouth that he awoke to find himself already smacking in disdain, grimacing. He focused his eyes and the world slowly formed around him.

He was not in his damned bed. He hazarded a glance around him and realized he was laying on a carpeted floor.

He sat up, finding himself inches away from the pretty pleasure slave, dozing peacefully in the bed.

He felt trapped. He stood slowly, his joints creaking painfully in protest. He winced when every step he made resulted in a loud, defiant squawk of the uneven floorboards.

His hand was on the doorknob when he heard the whore stir and say something to him. He turned, sheepish. She pulled the sheet down, exposing her breasts and smiled at Sandor.

“I paid your...proprietor up front so don’t go shaking more coins loose from me.”

The girl pulled the sheet further down, revealing her taut stomach to him.

“Oh!” Sandor blurted, comprehension blaring. “You still want a tup.” His chest puffed up with as much pride he could muster in his piteous state.

“No,” Sandor told her, knowing she couldn’t understand. “Sorry. I have somewhere to be. But here, for your courtesies,” he strode forward, shrugging, fishing a coin out of his purse. When he dropped it in her palm, she reached out for him to tug him back onto the bed.

“Stop it now, girl,” Sandor rasped impatiently. “I’m needed somewhere.” He glanced out the window and seeing how high the sun was placed in the sky, swore vehemently. He turned once more and patted the pleasure slave on top of her head.

“Good work, girl. I almost believed you cared.” The scowl on her face as he hurriedly shut the door behind him made him believe that perhaps she spoke the Common Tongue after all.

Sandor burst into his room at the inn, bed still made, and grabbed his sack of belongings. He thundered towards the room adjacent to his and pounded his fist at the door.

“Out, now, we need to leave!” Sandor shouted into the door. “The trading cog will leave without us for Meereen.”

Sandor sighed heavily and pounded once more. “Girls! Wake up!”

He pressed his ear to the door and waited to hear a soft girlish murmur or a small stirring, any signal to let him know they were awake.

He heard a very mocking silence.

Stomach beginning to sink, he reared a boot back and kicked the heavy oak door in.

A maid squealed and dropped her broom, waving her hands in surrender. She’d been sweeping the rushes out.

The bed had been stripped.

Their belongings were gone.

The girls were gone.

He ran as fast as his blasted leg would permit him to the gangplanks, his sack clutched in one fist. He knew that he could not blame Sansa for leaving him behind, he’d been awful to her. He’d said cruel things to her, things he could never take back.

He flew down the docks to where the ship was supposed to be. He skidded to a stop and nearly fell into the water when he saw.

Sansa was perched on her trunk, biting into a pear and giggling when the juice ran down her chin.

Arya spotted him first. She nodded towards him, and when Sansa saw, the two girls both waved to him calmly and politely.

“I deserved that.” Sandor gasped, bending over to brace his hands on his knees and catching his breath. He didn’t look up to see what he could hear; the girls laughing at him.


	18. Chapter 18

Sandor was seated on a cedar bench with his back against the sturdy mizzenmast, sharpening his sword. He often sat aft, watching the activity carry on throughout the decks. Right now he was watching the sodding sailors fall over themselves for a fighting chance to teach Sansa to play cyvasse.

She already _knew_ how to play. Their first night aboard the _Sea Master_ he had watched Sansa defeat Arya in three matches of the game.

“This game is stupid,” Arya had spat out after her final loss. “I hate it.”

“It’s not stupid, it’s strategic. You always play your dragons too soon,” Sansa had said airily, waving a dismissive hand.

After Arya rolled her eyes and refused another match, Sansa had looked over at Sandor while her soft little hands began to gracefully replace the units onto the board. She’d looked him right in the eye and demurred, “Sandor, would you like to play with me?” He thought he’d carry that memory as far as his grave and then some, most like.  

Sandor scrutinized his sword, now polished and sharpened to razor’s edge, gleaming in the hot afternoon sun.

“Years ago you would’ve thrown them overboard.” Arya walked up, nodding her head towards the sailors surrounding Sansa.

“Don’t think I’m not sorely tempted,” Sandor grunted amiably.

Arya smiled, as much as one could call it a smile, then raised one hand to shield her eyes as she studied something out over the horizon. Blinking slowly, she turned and surveyed their decks.

“Something amiss?” Sandor asked her.

Arya inhaled and after a moment, shook her head. “Hard to say. I’ve too little knowledge of seafaring. There’s a chance my mislike is misplaced.”

Sandor just nodded, knowing she’d tell him when something wasn’t right. He misliked this ship, too, and all the buggering crew and oftentimes wished for another, but the next vessel sailing for Meereen wouldn’t have left port for months; and the decision had come down to spending months waiting in Selhorys, spending months crossing the dry Dothraki sea, or boarding the bleeding  _Sea Master_ and spend five days, four if the winds are fair, sailing across Slaver’s Bay to make for Meereen.

Their captain was a former Yunkish slave trader named Xanqo zo Lorraq. After Daenerys and her dragons had freed all Yunkish slaves, Captain Lorraq traded his shackles and manacles for pig pens; and was now carting livestock and other sundries throughout the bay. He took coin from passengers at every port and then stuck them into the quarters they’d used for slaves, one big room below deck full of rotting cots and the filth of livestock.

When they’d boarded and found their quarters, Sandor was greeted by a red hen attempting to roost atop his boot. The rooster wasn’t even ship’s cargo; it was another passenger’s laying hen.

Sandor had stomped up to Captain Lorraq at the prow and thrown him down bodily, in front of all eyes. The yellow bastard had just smiled, though, bloodied gums and all. Sansa had stood nearby, then, and just like always, soothed someone into simpering complacency. When Captain Lorraq’s yellow eyes had slithered down the length of Sansa’s red hair and then slid towards Arya, the man’s smile had taken on a new sheen, one Sandor didn’t trust one bit. It wasn’t lust; it was greed. It was damn near triumph.

Arya had taken to wearing Needle on her hip day and night. Her hand was always returning to resting lightly on the pommel.

Sandor, standing and sheathing his lethal blade, understood.

“Watch her, will you?” he asked Arya, who was already doing just that. “I’m going to check out the cargo bay while they’re all entertained.” Arya didn’t even spare a glance his way as she nodded, her eyes fixed and calculating. Sandor muttered his thanks to her and walked away wondering how to find good castle-forged steel this far east for Arya. Needle was too small for her now.

Sandor stumbled down the wet, well-worn wood of the galley steps towards the cargo hold, which always had guards posted on the grate covering the drop into it. One had been above deck slavering over the little bird, so that left one less idiot to plow through.

He walked casually into the bay, as he had before. One armed guard; a pikeman. _Pikeboy more like,_ Sandor scoffed as the quaking lad raised a quivering arm in halt.

The boy said something to Sandor in High Valyrian.

“Fuck that,” Sandor told him. “Whatever nonsense you just said. I’m going into the cargo hold all the same, even if I go through you on the way. That pretty little thing up there won’t come down here to save you from me, either.”

Sandor stepped forward from the shade of the stairs, closer to the boy. The sun drifted in through the deadlight, and he felt it catch on the scars on his face. The young guard trembled.

“I’m not going to waste a good speech on the likes of you when the little bird isn’t even around to hear it,” Sandor snarled, baring his teeth. He crept closer, looming over the guard.

“Because all you need to understand is that I am saying something bloody TERRIFYING!” Sandor roared.

The poor lad jumped, then scuttled backwards towards the wall, abandoning his post.

“Huh,” Sandor grunted, pleasantly surprised.

“Didn’t even raise my sword,” Sandor said as he lifted the heavy grate and lowered himself down. He thought of how pleased Sansa would be with him and cursed himself for calling her stupid all these years; not that he’d ever believed it, but he wished he had a way to let her know that in truth, the little bird was nothing short of brilliant.

When his feet touched cog bottom, he raised himself to regard the contents of the cargohold.

“Bloody fucking hell,” he swore.

 

* * *

 

“Figs?” Sansa asked Sandor again, making sure.

“Fucking figs,” he rumbled.

“ _Figs_ ,” Sansa sighed, stymied. “But why guard figs?”

“Good girl,” Sandor rasped, steely eyes slyly appraising.

 _I will never tire of your voice_ , Sansa despaired silently, suddenly feeling a bit breathless. (Good girl, of all things, it was that alone which slayed her). This soot-black voice, she knew, had haunted her incessantly in the Vale, even weaving through her dreams. _Hound, would you care to know how long I searched for wisps of that cold steel-on-stone in every shadow?_

“I don’t like this ship very much,” Sansa confessed, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling involuntarily in apology, politely, or otherwise.  

“Nor should you,” Sandor nodded, setting his jaw and scanning the decks, wary eyes watching the men as they went about their work. He leaned his elbows against the bulwark. The breeze swept his dark hair back from his face. She was surprised he let it.

Sansa studied his profile; he’d given her the unburned half. She imagined a world in which Sandor had never felt his face held to the brazier by his own blood and kin; a world in which the Hound may have never existed.

 _I doubt I’d have survived my engagement to Joffrey overlong,_ Sansa realized, recalling when the Hound had pulled her back from shoving Joffrey into the spiked moat below the gates of Maegor’s Holdfast. _I’d likely be a skull on a pike if not for this man._

Sansa turned out to watch the horizon dip and ebb as Sandor had, resting her hands on the railing next to his. The wind tossed the ends of her hair, sending it whipping across her face. _Who would the unburned half of Sandor had been?_   she mused. _The Otter, maybe,_  she smiled to herself.

“What’s amusing you?” Sandor rumbled.

Sansa let her gaze travel languidly over his form, powerful even in repose. She let him see her do it. _This is a_ man, some sultry instinct instructed her.

“I was just thinking the Elder Brother had perhaps been right.”

“What about?” Sandor asked her.

“Maybe they _should_ have called you the Ox.” She lowered her lashes and quirked her lips. She felt abashed at her forwardness.

Sandor twisted and faced her completely, leaning one elbow on the bulwark and clasping his hands together as he regarded her intently.

 _Even his palms rasp against one another_ , Sansa marvelled, feeling a flush creep up her cheeks as her next thoughts immediately (consistently) led her to think of his rasping palms against her yielding softness.

She swallowed and levelly met his gaze, taking a quick, bolstering breath.

“I’m so sorry for striking you,” Sansa blurted out. “And for saying what I did. About your face.”

“I deserved it, girl.” Sandor snorted. “That and worse.”

He turned out again to sea again and nudged her with his shoulder. “Even the gentlest little songbird’s beak will feel sharp if you bother her too much.”

Sansa knew she’d feel awfully for having said it, forever, because she’d known precisely where his weakness would be and she’d sunk her teeth into it. She believed she could be one of two, maybe more, people who knew Sandor like that.

The sun was beginning to set, scattering sharp ochre and amber rays through the clouds across the churning waters. Their ship drifted through glittering, molten gold as the wind urged it forward. Sansa could feel the sunset’s gentle glow on her face and she supposed, in that moment, that she probably looked very pretty.

“Are you going to apologize?” Sansa asked gently. He dropped his gaze. 

“And don’t ask for what, you brute,” she added primly, causing him to emit a rough chuckle. She tried to quell her smile and found it difficult. She was a mirror, she knew. She smiles when someone smiles at her, even if she has no inkling as to its cause. _Echoing everything like those little birds do,_ she thought. _The Hound was the first to tell me that._

“Sansa, I am very sorry that you had to see me like that; stinking drunk and with a whore sitting in my lap."

Sansa knit her brow. “... _And_?” she asked, worrying her bottom lip.

“'And'…? Gods, girl, do you want a bloody poem about it?” Sandor growled, frustrated.

“You _left_ with her,” Sansa said it like it was positively filthy, she said it that way because in truth she’d wanted to cry out loud and beat her fists against his chest, _You fucked her. You fucked her and made sure I knew you were going to._

Sansa suddenly found an unrivaled interest in watching the wind’s orchestrations over the glittering waves, the way it was licking and lapping at the little peaks water, folding the golden froth back and back again as it forged. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Sandor. The thoughts tumbled heedlessly and she felt the shards of a broken heart she’d entombed deep in her chest begin to enlarge again. _You wanted her and not me, I am not good enough for you, I am not pretty enough, I am not experienced enough for you because I am just a farce, an unbedded, unblooded virgin widow, a timid maiden shadow—_

“Here, girl.” Sandor’s voice cut through her avalanche of unwelcome thoughts to pull his yellow wool cloak over her shoulders. _I’m a girl_ , Sansa silently agreed. _And you are a man._ She hadn’t even noticed she’d been shivering.

“That’s all there was, girl. Do you hear me? I shouldn’t have even groped at her like that. But I didn’t take her.”

Sansa’s mind went from avalanche to blizzard. Whiteness. She was blank.

Sandor cleared his throat, uncomfortably searching for the words, which made the discomfiting icicles inhabiting Sansa’s chest melt a bit.

“I paid her master for the room and then,” he waved the rest off.

Sansa stared at him with raised eyebrows.

“Seven hells, Sansa, she’s a slave! I may be the Hound, but I’m no knight of the bloody Kingsguard!” he growled angrily.

Sansa burst into laughter, surprising herself with it. This man’s definition of the _worst_ sort of creature, the lowest of the low, is a Knight of the Kingsguard. Because he’d been there to see what they’d done to her.

“I’m fair certain I cried to her over you, little bird. Before drunkenly passing out on the floor next to the bed,” he confessed. “I should have fucked her raw. Might be that’s just what I need to stop slobbering over you.” He had a rueful, wretched little smile.

“But, Gods, going on years now—it’s as if I’ve just gone mad, slowly shucking off all my armor so as to appear softer. The slowness made it so I couldn’t even see what danger that brings until this—” He held his hands up to Sansa’s neck as if to wrap them around her throat, “ _This little bird_ was straight in front of me, already plucking both eyes right out. And then there was no more. I was blinded. It was too late,” he admitted hoarsely, eyes staring straight ahead.

“I have a face so ugly that it made children cry to look at me, even when I was one. They called me monster, and so I became one. I didn’t even need a mask to be a monster. Just a sword and a horse. And a fucking Kingsguard cloak. Little bird, do you remember what I told you about what the sweetest thing there is?” he rasped.

“I remember everything you’ve ever told me,” Sansa said faintly. “All of it.”

His harsh steely eyes softened ‘til they were silvery. If Sansa didn’t know any better she’d say it was pity he was looking at her with.

“Aye,” he told her quietly, “Then you know I said the sweetest thing was killing. Only, I was mistaken. It’s this _blindness_ you’ve given me that’s the sweetest. Like a hot, buttered, brandywine, you are. Never have I tasted an agony so fine, so sweet. The funny part is how it’s been killing me all the same, girl.”

Sansa suddenly clasped her hands over her chest. She couldn’t be sure, but she felt that she was going to suddenly split apart and splinter into a thousand tiny shining pieces if she didn’t clutch her hands over her breast to hold herself together. Sandor just stared at her bleakly.

He dropped his head. “What have you done to me, little bird?” he said in a low, slow, bitter whisper.

An unladylike triumph was welling within her. She wanted to crow and cackle and call him a fool, and tell him what it was to feel that way, that helpless, that mad. She wanted to welcome him to it with her, invite him to die right alongside her. 

She didn’t, though.

“That was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me,” Sansa said softly.

“Repeat it to anyone and I’ll kill you.”

“Before or after I’ve killed _you_ , do you suppose?” she murmured. Her heart was thrumming, and Sansa thought the speed could lift her right off her toes and send her afloat.

“Hound, it appears you perhaps have one of the kindest, softest hearts in all the seven kingdoms,” she teased him. With caution.  

He stood over her, leaning so close to her face that Sansa felt a nervous thrill shoot through her, the expectation of being kissed by the Hound.  

“Aye,” he rasped quietly, warm breath stirring her hair near her ear. “But I’m hard where it counts, girl.”

Sansa felt a molten shiver roll up her spine and she let her lips part. She stared at Sandor, discovering the distinct feeling of her breasts rising and falling with each breath.

He backed away, hands held behind his back and eyes glinting dangerously.

“Oxen are stubborn, after all,” he told her, tilting his head back. “Notoriously hard-headed.”

Sansa’s breath left her in a rush.

 

* * *

 

He couldn’t keep his eyes off her when they broke their fast that morning. Sansa squirmed and blushed under his intent and watchful eyes, undiluted with any averting. She’d barely eaten anything, but it was because she was full of nerves. Color stayed high in her cheeks.

She’d barely slept.

Sansa had wanted the moment at the bulwark to last forever, wrapped in his warm cloak and watching the inky night sky bleed through the disappearing day, and she’d even told him as much. She was worried that something would spoil her perfect moment with him as it always does; life being so damnably and consistently imperfect as it is, so she’d selfishly asked him to wait awhile longer with her.

“Alright, little bird.” He’d nodded, quiet and tender, forgiving her. They’d stood until Sansa’s head was dropping against his shoulder and she was nodding off. He’d carried her to her chambers and she, stupid girl, had been so deeply asleep that she’d not noticed or felt it when he’d lain her down and kissed her forehead so sweetly. (She imagined that’s how it had occurred.)

And then her dreams had been plagued with ugly things; a blurry noseless face screaming in roiling blue waters, the immense black dragon’s claw coming in after it; a black wall hung with white screams ever so neatly, those faces nailed in eternal agony; a fiery face tied to a post, throat open wide enough Sansa could see the ashes and embers stirring in her burning gullet.

She’d woken up choking on her own spit, the horsehair blanket tangled round her knees. It took a long moment to quiet her nightmares.

Four days had since passed and Sansa was still valiantly attempting to rid herself of the nightmare’s plague of faces. By and large her most successful distraction was Sandor—who hadn’t stopped staring at her.

Something had been forged between them that night, something very sacred and precious to Sansa. She treated this new connection covetously, effusive as she sought Sandor out the next morning.

He’d wanted to toy with her, however. He’d now donned a new confidence, a cocksure swagger, a small smirk and a heavy stare and by the _gods,_ the man wore it well. He was holding her off, so their days were the very same as they continued their normal activities only now he was _staring_ , and it was the most delicious secret she’d ever been in on, and, _oh_ , at arm’s length is a such _taunting_ place to be made to wait. Sansa wasn’t entirely sure for what she waited, but she could certainly hope for his application to a few areas of her particular interest...she blushed, looked at her plate of biscuit. She was wilting like a flower too heavy with pollen.

This was her new favorite game to play. This was her new favorite anything.

Pushing her plate across the table to Sandor and his rasping laughter, she stood and left him. She wondered if he could see what she wanted to say with every step of her walk away; _Woman_. She truly hoped he could.

Sansa found Arya laying on the aft bannersail like it was a hammock.

“We’ve been on this boat too long,” Arya told Sansa while she carefully crept onto the silk sail next to her.

Sansa groaned heavily, “Gods, how right. I long to have a _real_ bath again.”

They began studying the book together as was their custom, parsing out the phrases of High Valyrian they each knew. Arya was much better than she. They chattered about dreams next, and Sansa told Arya of her recent nightmares. As Arya puzzled, Sansa dreamily gave her mind leave to wander at will.

She pictured first the pieces of him she knew well; his hands, the cords of his neck, the underside of his chin, the horror of burns on his face. She pictured his chest and all his scars, on his arms and everywhere.

Arya broke her musing to ask about Sansa’s other recent dreams, so Sansa happily prattled to her sister of dreams being alley cats or scuttling, seabed things.

All her life, Sansa had often dreamed things that she had no claim to; memories or visions would resurface in her nightly dark wanderings that were so far-fetched, so bizarre, yet so finely articulated that even as a small child Sansa had insisted she was stealing dreams. _Vivid imaginings_ , was her mother’s kind murmur; she was all warm Tully blood and new gods. _Dreams are prophetic, ancient divinings,_ her father had cautioned her; he being the more arcane, blood of the First Men and old gods. Sometimes Sansa wished her father had never built the sept to welcome his southron wife to Winterfell. Sansa had always felt the need to satisfy each side, to straddle both worlds to appease both parents.

“Bless our late mother and father, all of you, old and new,” Sansa whispered to the passing wind.

Arya, more courteous since becoming a trained killer, politely pretended she hadn’t heard.

 

* * *

 

There was a wriggling dark worm in the back of Sandor’s mind that he couldn’t tease free no matter how hard he tried. It was the sapling borne of his unease, but he couldn’t name the seed.

He ruled out sea sickness or storms. He hadn’t seen a dark cloud for days, anyway.

The ship had well enough rations. They were in no danger of starvation.

It could just be a lack of physical exertion. Or fighting. Or fucking. Sandor hadn’t touched his sword (either one of them) in too much time. He hadn’t practiced with Sansa since they crossed the Narrow Sea on that damn ship, and this cog was even smaller, with more people. He doubted he could swing a sword anywhere on board without cutting someone standing too close.

He drifted towards his chambers and pushed the door open with his fingertips.  

“Happy name day!” Sansa cried, throwing her arms out. She was standing in his room.

“It's my name day?” Sandor asked dumbly.

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t even know what day it really is,” Sansa told him. “I just wanted to give you a gift.”

“A gift?” Sandor asked, glancing behind him before cutting his eyes back to her.

“Yes,” Sansa breathed. Sandor’s felt his own breath hitch in his throat when the little bird reached for the laces of the top of her dress. Keeping her eyes locked on his, she stepped backwards and began undoing the ribbons, her pretty little hands pulling each time with a deliberate slowness. She backed into the bed, her legs hitting the frame of his bunk. Sandor thought it wouldn’t be very knightly of him have his knees go off and buckle at the sight of her naked breasts, so he gripped the doorframe for strength. His breath was coming heavy.

“Sandor,” she sighed softly, slowly pulling her blouse open to him. He swallowed hard, but Sansa then promptly turned around and opened the front of her dress towards his bed, shaking out several figs which rolled on his bed.

He blinked. “Figs.”

“Figs!” she agreed. When she faced him again, she was holding her dress closed. “Happy name day, Hound,” she said fondly.

“You're a cruel woman, Lady Sansa," he rumbled, not unkindly. He crossed to the bed and took one of her “gifts.”

“And a thief,” she added proudly, preening.

“How’d you get past the guards?” he asked her, rolling the fruit in his palm to warm it. He wondered if adjusting himself in his breeches was something she _wanted_ to see him do.  

She turned away from him and spoke over her shoulder as she laced her dress back up. “Oh, I didn’t. I just asked Roden and Dephario to give me a few,” she said with a shrug.

“And they just...brought it to you?”

She finished and turned back around. “Yes. Why?”

“Well, for one, you aren’t quite the pirate you wish to be if you just asked _nicely_ for them to give you some fruit,” Sandor told her.

She rolled her eyes and pulled the long ends of her hair over one shoulder to comb her fingers through it. “Yes, well. I’ve got plenty of time to learn to do bad things.”

“Aye,” Sandor rasped down at her, stepping closer. He pushed her hand away from her hair and threaded his own fingers through it. It was so impossibly soft that Sandor’s mind instantly brought forward the absurd image of spilling his seed into it. He promptly felt ashamed. Still—he couldn’t _stop himself_ as he wound his hand in her hair and clutched, pulling her head back with his fist. _Those eyes of hers. All that blue._

She was breathless, glittering gaze darting over his face. She wet her lips and left her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Sandor growled and dropped the fig, hearing it roll across the floor. He was pulling Sansa by the small of her back to crush her against him when the worm in his head finally wriggled loose.

“ _GODS_ ,” Sandor reared back and roared.

Sansa blanched. “Pardon?”

“No, _seven hells_ , not you little bird. Fucking hells,” he swore, “you—” he gestured to the length of her. “—Gods. You’re my worst bloody fucking nightmare. You’re perfect,” he spoke quickly, grabbing her hand and leading her out.

“That’s kind. I think.”

“High praise, little bird,” he said as they made their way towards the cargo hold. “Trust me.”

The two guards smiled when they saw Sansa. The young one’s face lit up.

“Let us in.” Sandor warned low, unsheathing his sword. The two guards took a moment to confer. 

“Bugger this,” Sandor decided suddenly, swinging his steel. He killed the pikeboy before he could even tip his spearpoint down. Sansa screamed behind them.

The other guard jabbed his spear at Sandor’s kidneys, charging before Sandor could twist to face him. Sandor ducked, dropping one knee to thrust his sword behind him; he didn’t need to see where he plunged his blade because he felt as his precise slice cut through gut, shredding innards and nicking the spine. He hitched his hilt up and yanked free, hopefully cutting through bladder and higher.

He could feel the sweet venom of _finally_ fighting, of killing, and better; of winning coursing in him, but his eyes sought Sansa’s and he thought, _You are still sweeter._ Blood still dripped from his blade. 

“Why guard figs,” the Hound demanded from her. “—why post guards only to give it away anyway?”

“Because there is something else down there,” the little bird said after pausing to consider.

“Yes.” He sheathed his sword to lift the heavy iron grate with both hands. “Now come here.”

She obeyed, and stood at his side. “You first,” he rasped to Sansa. She hesitated, frightened.

“Get _in_ ,” he barked.

She took a deep breath and sat down on the edge of the drop, hopping down inside. Sandor stepped down in after her, the force from his landing rattling every leaf on every tree.

He and Sansa moved apart, examining the room. She dug her fingers into the soil of each clay pot until she was covered in dirt to her elbows.

Sandor was flinging aside stacks of crates and coils of rope to expose the posterior wall.

He rapped his knuckles against it. There was an obvious hollowness behind the sound.

“Sansa,” he called out. “Something’s here.” He ran his fingers over the boards, looking for any give.

“There,” Sansa said. “Look.” She pointed to an iron hatch at the very top of the wall, just about touching the ceiling.

Sandor reached up and grasped it, pulling down. Nothing.

“Try pulling it outwards,” Sansa suggested. “Towards yourself.”

He did as she said and the wall moved an inch. He yanked again and felt a heavy weight counter-pulling. “Careful now, girl. Easy,” he told Sansa as he slowly lowered false wall off balance of its frame. She backed out of range.

The smell hit them a second later; foul enough to make fair Lady Sansa hold a hand over her face and turn away to retch.

He clenched his teeth as bore the full weight of the wall, now able to reach the top edge and wrap his hands on the highest edge. He lowered it slowly, and when it came down past his eyes, he retched too, dropping the wall with a heavy bang that shook the cog bottom to cough and spit.

The cramped oarpit was crowded with slave men.

They were shackled by their waist to wooden longbenches, hands steadily working the heavy oars. Their feet were enclosed in heavy irons soldered to rings in the floor. Their manacles were all chained to each others, so if one man moved his oar, it pulled all their wrists in the same motion.

One or two of the men had glanced up impassively when the wall crashed down, but otherwise they continued rowing without interest in their visitors. They were all sickeningly pale and so gaunt that Sandor couldn’t see where they had muscle left to pull the oars like they were. The floor was caked high with their own filth. Two of the men were most certainly dead, and had been for awhile from the looks of the black innards he saw unfurling through ribs. _Gods, the poor dead bastards have gnaw marks—_

He turned, shaking with the force of his rage. He looked for Sansa through the neat rows of all the little fig trees. She was backed into a corner, hands over her face. She was trembling like a leaf and pale as snow.

“Little bird,” he croaked, miserable.

She fell to her knees, hands still over his face. He knelt beside her, quickly gathering her into his arms.

“I’m sorry, little bird,” he muttered harshly into her hair. “I am _so sorry_ you have seen this.”

“Why?” she wailed against his chest.

A thousand responses rushed into his head but Sandor couldn’t bring himself to tell this sweet girl " _Because there are no gods"_ as he rocked her in his arms. So he smoothed her hair again and again.

“I want off this ship, I want to go, we have to go, this isn’t right, I want to leave, we’ve been on this boat too long—”

Sandor’s stomach flipped.

Sansa pulled her face up to look at him. She clutched her small fists in the front of his tunic. “It doesn’t make any sense. We haven’t dropped anchor and stopped for a single night because they—the men in there—have been _rowing_ all day and night to get to Meereen, Sandor it’s been well over a week, why is it taking so long?”

“Because they aren’t taking us to Meereen,” Arya said.

Sandor and Sansa both looked up to see her standing over them, wearing darkness like she’d woven her cloak out of old shadows. “They’re sailing north. To Yunkai.”

She stepped past them, towards the men who worked the oars. Her dull eyes skittered all over the horror in the oar room as she told them, “Xanqo knew who we are and sold us. There’s a Westerosi host waiting to seize us in Yunkai.” She spoke in a dead voice.

Sandor’s head began to swim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol what's a boat, how do boat, why boat, why such boat, why do boats have such funny names for evERYTHING
> 
> (please excuse my loose grasp of boat words; i attended the google college of search terms)


	19. Chapter 19

Sansa fought the black spots threatening to overtake her eyes. Her blood thrashed in her ears, drowning out all other sounds. Her belly had constricted, folding in on itself again and again until Sansa felt that her insides were being pulled as tautly as a bowstring. She couldn’t breathe. She placed her palms on her breastbone, feeling their iciness down through her dress.

There are fates worse than death. If she was seized and brought back alive to King’s Landing—

She reached down and took the spear from the dead guard.

Arya and Sandor were discussing something heatedly, but Sansa couldn’t follow their words over the sound of her own blood rushing.

“I won’t go back,” Sansa faintly told them. They ignored her. She couldn’t even be certain she was truly speaking aloud. It felt as if she was speaking from the bottom of a well; she heard her own voice as if she’d left her body behind at a safe distance. _Now—where did I leave my tongue?_

The heavy grate came crashing down over the cargo bay drop. Sandor went to it and pushed against the metal, raising it until a lowered torch fire alighted down on his fingertips. He let it fall again and shook his burned hand out, the muscles in his forearm tense and corded. He breathed heavily, his lips pulled back to bare his teeth. He growled something at them up there; they who burned him, and Sansa nearly felt sorry for them. Sandor raised his arms against the grate, which now had been covered with planks they were nailing in. He clenched his teeth and looped his fingers around the grate and pushed, but now it gave no yield. He roared, but Sansa couldn’t hear it. They were being sealed off and trapped. Just like the slaves.

 _Don’t they know he’s the Hound?_  Sansa wondered. _He’ll kill them all._

The Hound’s neck was corded and he was breathing harshly. He clenched his enormous hands into fists and began to pound the wood around the grate. It took two hits for the wood to splinter, six for it to crack, eight poundings of his fist and a coating of his own blood for him to be able to wrap his freshly burned fingers around the wood and pull it apart. Pound and tear, pound and tear, pound and swear at the torches that came down like fireflies to burn his hands, until there was a hole large enough for him to leap up and grab a man’s ankle. The Hound dragged him by the ankle into hell. He got caught at the waist and couldn’t fit in, so the Hound cut him in half and tried again.

Six of Xanqo’s men came thundering in, dropping one by one through the hole like bagworms. They ignored Sansa to charge straight for the Hound, save for two men who ran instead to overtake Arya.

Sansa cleared her throat. “I said I won’t go back,” she said again, but they both seemed quite busy. The Hound fought four men alone, and little Arya was slippery as an eel, twisting and turning and stabbing her attackers.

The slave men kept rowing.

Arya’s assailants were slowing now, dark red-blue stains spreading over their clothes. Her sister dipped and ducked and slid her way through the men’s blood slicked across the floor, leaving behind a romantic crimson trail of swirls and whorls. The beauty of it made Sansa’s heart bleed. She’d never seen a dance so beautiful. Her sister had never looked so graceful. Her dancing master had trained her well.

The Hound cut a man in two.

He stuck his steel between a man’s legs and ripped it up, slicing from groin through skull. The two halves of man fell aside unceremoniously and the Hound readied for his next kill, roaring so loudly that even though Sansa hadn’t heard it, she’d _felt_ it, she’d felt the sting of it well inside her ears, the vibration wrapping itself around her body.

Arya was speaking to her, now. Her little sister’s hand was on Sansa’s shoulder and shaking her, but Sansa was watching the Hound kill another man.

She felt herself brush past her sister towards the Hound. Sansa’s scalp tingled when she thrust her spear into the lower back of the last man attacking him. Sandor froze.

The man hadn’t gone down as she’d expected him to, so Sansa improvised. She twisted the spear buried in his back. The man moaned in agony then, a sound so oddly intimate that it made Sansa blush.

He dropped to his knees, and startled—Sansa let go of the spear. When the man fell face forward, the spear stuck in his back jutted upright in a way that Sansa thought looked very silly. _You were my first_ , she thought as she reached to take her instrument out of his body. She felt it catch on something inside him, and trying again, just couldn’t tug it free.

Sandor wrapped a bloody hand around the spear handle and pulled it out like it had been stuck in butter. He handed it back to her, his tanned face now pale and drawn. He wouldn’t look at Sansa as much as she willed him to.

Arya stepped to them then, and reached for Sansa’s hand. Sansa couldn’t remember a time when she’d last held her sister’s hand like this, but it felt so achingly familiar that she turned and smiled suddenly at her sister. Arya’s face was full of pride, but it was feral and it was fearsome; it was her sister’s shocking fierceness. Seeing it felt like going home.

“I said, I won’t go back to King’s Landing.” Sansa reminded them quietly and politely.

The three stood for a moment, swallowed whole by the sudden stillness.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the INCREDIBLY short chapter but listen if this was a screenplay i'd cut to black HERE, RIGHT HERE and also i'm posting another chapter later today!


	20. Chapter 20

“We can’t kill them all because _we can’t sail this stupid ship,_ ” Arya whispered.

“Little louder, if you could.” Sandor’s sarcastic grating whisper came out of the darkness. “Else the good captain craven up there might have not yet had the chance to hear our making plans.”

Sansa pulled her hair back from her face, scrunching her eyes shut and raking her nails across scalp as she did so. They’d been squabbling for a quarter-hour.

The hole in the ceiling remained. They’d expected more men to drop in to subdue them, but galley above was eerily quiet. Sandor hadn’t let Arya or Sansa go up through it, hissing that someone would be waiting to chop off their heads when they popped up like moles.

They weren’t sure what they’d find up there, so they’d waited down there among the slave men rowing; their chains faithfully clanking.

“If we aren’t going to be taken to Yunkai, we have to kill them all and take control of this ship. If we are going to take control of this ship, it would be nice to know how to sail it,” Arya lowered her voice again, whispering.

“Couldn’t we leave...just..a few alive?” Sansa asked. “To sail the ship?”

“The craft is too big to sail with too few hands,” Sandor answered.

“But we have to fight, we simply must, if we let ourselves await capture, if we—I will die.” Sansa’s voice caught. “I would rather die. I would choose death. I will throw myself into the sea.”

Arya didn’t answer for a long moment, until she suddenly faced Sandor with a funny smile on her face. “A mercy,” she told him.

Sansa didn’t understand.

“You’re absolutely certain you can slip up unnoticed, wolf girl?” Sandor rasped, low and quiet. Arya nodded.  

“Alright. Come here, then.”

Sansa watched as her sister stood under the hole and lifted her arms. Sandor wrapped his hands around her and lifted her into the galley like she was a child. It was the strangest thing—Sansa could see enough of the room up there to have seen Arya step onto the broken planks and walk, but it was as if she melted away as Sandor raised her. An impossible darkness overtook her.

There were no creaks of the planks above them to give away her steps. Sansa’s heart was pounding louder than her sister’s footfall.

“Come up, now.” Arya’s voice filtered down.

Sansa stepped under the hole and raised her arms to be lifted up when his hand clamped around her wrist and spun her around.

The Hound closed his hand around her chin and lowered his face down to hers. The light caught on his scars, twisting them into shadowy nightmares. His hand smelled of blood.

“Know this, girl.” He rasped so close that she could feel his breath on her lips. “I will _cut down_ every single last one of them before I let any man lay hands on you again. If it pleases you, I will butcher every other creature left alive; men, women, children—I’ll cut a bloody swath to the ends of the earth until it’s cleared down to just you and me, girl. Would you like that, little bird?”

Sansa raised her hand to lay gently on the side of his face. He turned into her palm, pressing it closer. She could feel a wetness, but it was only the blood on his hands.

She kissed the Hound; soft, sweet, and fleeting. He tasted like the salt from the ocean spray, from his sweat, from blood perhaps. She tasted him all the same. When she drew her hand away from his, she saw his blood had stained the back of her palm where he'd clutched her.

She raised her arms, and as he lifted her to where her sister waited, Sansa whispered to the Hound, “I kept your Kingsguard cloak, you know.” She thought she heard him make a small, tortured noise in his throat.

Arya helped Sansa out and the scent of the fresh, cold brine was ambrosial after being down in that wretched pit. Sansa gasped, filling her lungs with it.

When she felt Sandor at her back, they cautiously stepped out of galley and onto the decks.

Sansa couldn’t have said what she would have expected to find, but she just knew it was not the candlelit feast in front of them where Xanqo was seated alone and waiting. The winds had died and their ship bobbed quietly in black ink.

“Sit, my friends,” he invited, teeth gleaming in the darkness. “Let us eat.”

 

* * *

 

Sandor bellowed and made a path straight to Xanqo with his sword drawn. Arya grabbed his arm and restrained him, hissing something between her teeth.

Sansa calmly sat down, picked up her fork, and began to eat. There were grilled fishes with salt and red spice, fish baked in a thick, dark, green leaf with slices of dried orange laid atop them, a dish of candied ginger and of course, grilled fig.

Sandor sheathed his sword reluctantly after words from Arya. He made for a seat at the table but when he looked at Sansa and she smiled up at him, he turned back and laid a heavy blow into Xanqo’s face. The captain fell backward with it, out of his seat and onto the decks.

He blinked once or twice up at the night sky and then gurgled a chuckle, before he spat his blood, swiped his wrist delicately across his mouth, and returned to his seat.

Sandor’s heaving breaths came rapidly. His shoulders were tensed in what Sansa knew was a sign of his blackest rages.

She spooned some candied ginger onto her plate.

“This is quite good,” Sansa told Arya, who sat down next to her with a worried stare. Arya wordlessly glanced up at Sandor. Sansa couldn’t say what passed between them, but she’d rather not dwell.

“Try this,” Sansa said to her sister. “I’m not certain what it is.”

“Squid.” Xanqo’s smiling voice came from the other end of the table.

“Oh, how delightful,” Sansa replied. “I’ve never tried it.” She paused to take a bite and thoughtfully chewed. And chewed.

“It’s quite rubbery, isn’t it!” Sansa exclaimed, her hand held in front of her mouth as she worked at the flesh. Xanqo laughed.

Sandor sat down in front of Sansa, keeping his eyes locked on her like she was a skittish animal. As soon as Sandor sat, Xanqo waved to the darkness and out came a man with a pitcher who poured them all wine. Xanqo shook out his napkin and began eating.

“Fine weather we’ve had, my lord,” Sansa said politely to Xanqo. She ignored Sandor and Arya as they looked sharply at each other. “We’d been warned of the sorts of storms we could have, but it seems we’ll soon make it to...Yunkai, is it?”

Xanqo smiled with shark teeth. “Yes. It is Yunkai.”

Sansa took another bite of fish (the grilled one) and nodded. She placed her fork down and looked at Xanqo across the candelabra, flickering gaily in the windless night.

“And why do we make for Yunkai and not the port we paid you for?” she asked sweetly. Her fingertips then touched the handle of Arya’s untouched dull dinner knife beside her.

“Ah, you see, it is not good to go to Meereen,” he dismissed her. “Dragon queen sacked my city, yes? She is no friend to Yunkai. I once had many ships to trade slaves and I made many journeys between cities, but she is closing fighting pits and ending slave trade and now?” Exasperated, he waved a hand around them, “I have only _Sea Master_.”

“And your secret cache of men in chains down below,” Sansa added playfully. “Don’t forget about them.”

He laughed, showing his teeth. “Yes, this is true. And so, with so very few ships going to Meereen now, I find it quite strange to have three Westerosi foreigners seeking passage there. I think, it is only to aid Dragon bitch, yes?”  

Sansa nodded thoughtfully and waited for him to continue.

“So I send word to one of Westerosi emissary before we depart Selhorys, I describe you, and I receive answer fast. Generous, your royalty.” His teeth gleamed.

“How clever of you,” Sansa demurred. “You sold us out.” She raised her wine glass to him. He returned the gesture in kind.

“We are so sorry about the deaths of your men,” Sansa said. “But they were most unkind. I hope the remainder of your crew will behave more civilly. How many are left, would you say?”

“26 men, my lady.”

“Now, is that including the slaves or not?” she teased him.

He laughed and waved her off, “They are not men, sweet lady. They are oars.”

Sansa looked up at Sandor then, who’d been staring at her hopelessly the entire time. “I’ll need you to distract his men when the time comes,” she murmured into her cup as she took a sip of her wine. “Several surround us.”

Sandor heard, but didn’t move. Sansa set her wine glass down. “My lord, what a fine cloak you wear. Is that Myrish lace it is trimmed in?”

“You have a fine eye, my lady. It is.”

“Might I take a closer look?” Sansa asked, twirling her fingers shyly in her hair as she looked expectantly at the captain.

Xanqo’s face fell slightly and his smile drooped at the corners for the first time that evening.

“You don’t have to permit me, my lord,” Sansa rushed to add, blushing. “It’s just been so long since I’ve seen something so fine.”

“Your friend, he stays seated, yes?” Xanqo asked, his sly smile rising again. “I have enough for tonight.” He gestured towards his swollen and broken nose.

“Yes,” Sansa assured him, before looking to Sandor and speaking he next words to him. “He will.”  She curled her fingers closed as she stood and pushed her chair back, legs scraping against the deck.

She walked around the table and leaned her hip on the edge where Xanqo sat. He eyed her appreciatively, taking in the shape of her bottom as she perched near him.

“So fine,” Sansa murmured, her fingers rubbing the woven trim between thumb and forefinger.

“Yes.” Xanqo said as his eyes traveled up to Sansa’s little waist. “It is nice.”

Sansa trailed her fingers up Xanqo’s shoulder. “Now, Sandor.”

Xanqo looked up at her sharply, which was a mistake. The dinner knife may be too dull to pierce skin, but it was appropriate for prying out eyes.

The captain howled as his eye dangled from its socket, his hands swatting at Sansa. Sandor was on his feet, shoving and cutting back the men who made to aid their captain.

Sansa used the knife to saw through the tender ligament holding the eye in place and when the bloody blinded orb was in her hand she showed it to Xanqo.

“Spying eyes,” she told him. "A new delicacy for you to try, slaver."

When he opened his mouth to speak she shoved it in, clamping her hand over his mouth until he swallowed. “Is it bitter?” she asked. “Salty? Sweet?”

It took four men and chains to subdue her and even more to pin down Arya. Eight men brought a roaring Sandor down. Sansa quickly counted the corpses on the deck and faced Xanqo, now blind in one eye, with a smile on her face as they dragged her down below to the stinking hell she’d just crawled out from.

“Seventeen men,” she called out to the captain. “You have _seventeen men_ , now!” she crowed.

 

* * *

 

Every time the heavy irons around the little bird’s ankles clanked, Sandor felt his guts wrench. It was bloody stupid, what she did. And look where it got them.

Chained and in irons, barely speaking, filthy and stinking and sleeping on the hard floor among dead and shriveled fig trees.

They’d eaten all the fruit and gnawed on leaves. They were given one bucket of water a day that they shared, although the little bird kept insisting on sharing portions from all her rations with the slaves.

Sandor might’ve laughed at the absurdity of the little bird dutifully clanking to and fro, flitting like a caged bird between they and the slaves. She’d poured sea water on the floor and cleaned it the best she could. She’d spoon fed them mealy porridge. One by one. She spoke to them, sang to them, each one. Sandor knew that it perhaps benefited the girl to feel useful and in control of something, whatever it may be, but he could tell from across the room that the men were too far gone to ever come back. Dull eyes stared back at Sansa as she wiped wisps of hair out of their face and forced cloth between the raw, bleeding meat of their hands and the red-soaked oars.

“I think Tom is gaining weight,” she said brightly as she dropped to sit beside Sandor.

“Which one’s he?” Sandor asked.

“Four from the front on the left side.”

Sandor found “Tom” and saw every line of his ribs. He didn’t have the energy to take the wind out of her. “Yes. Good work, little bird.”

Sansa sighed, pleased, and lifted her dress away from her ankles. When she tucked the hem between her skin and the irons, Sandor saw the tender flesh that had been rubbed raw beneath the irons.

He looked up at her gaunt face, cheekbones sharpened mightily by hunger. Her blue eyes were fever-bright.

Sandor rubbed the pain in his leg. The bastards had chained his bad leg to a heavy chunk of iron that caused him agony every time he dragged the weight of it a few steps. At least they’d chained his hands in front of him, he supposed, his eyes wandering over to where Arya sat.

Arya’s hands were in manacles behind her back.

Feeling his eyes on her, she glanced up sharply to Sandor. They didn’t need to say anything to convey their worry about Sansa. She would die down here and they both knew it. Sandor and Arya had also shared sly, muttered words about madness while Sansa sang and chattered to the slave men.

Sandor’s senses were intaking their surroundings with keen focus and his nose was so sharp that he could smell the subtle differences in the metallic tangs from the irons they all wore and the blood they all bore. He knew when the sores on the little birds ankle’s opened up again because he could smell her blood, blood that was blunted by starvation. Arya’s blood reminded him of sword points.

At another time, Sandor would have talked to Sansa about this and she would have wrinkled her little nose in distaste, but she would have jested about bloodhounds with him.

Now…

Her eyes drooped shut and her head nodded forward. She jerked it back up suddenly, blinking awake.

“Get some rest,” Sandor rasped, voice croaking with disuse and dehydration. Her head looked altogether too big on her thin little neck.

“I’m afraid I'll oversleep,” she smiled softly. She leaned her head back against the wall and sighed, the breath rattling inside her. Sandor knew that rattle well, had heard it a thousand times from dying men scattered across bloodied battlefields, and hearing it now emitting from the little bird—

Sansa rolled her head against the wood until she was looking at Sandor. Her eyes shined overbright and though Sandor knew it was fever, he grasped at it like a rope thrown down a well.

“I should tell you,” Sansa mumbled. “I should tell you everything.” 

She laughed and it turned into a cough. She wheezed again. “It’s so damp down here. I wish they’d bring us more light.”

Sandor swallowed hard and shared yet another worried glance with Arya. The torches, at least, burned brightly above their heads.

“This isn’t how I pictured telling you,” Sansa admitted in a hushed tone. She shook her head slowly, mumbling to herself, “This isn’t how I imagined dying, either.” 

“Little bird—”

She clasped his hands in hers suddenly, “Sandor, I have to tell you—”

The hatch covering the hole above their heads opened, spilling daylight into their swaying, dank dungeon.

Professions of death forgotten, Sansa squinted blearily above them. Xanqo dropped in, landing in a crouch. There was a patch above where his eye used to be.

“You look a real pirate now,” Arya said gayly.

“You never did tell me how your victory tastes,” Sansa purred. She was so thin now that Sandor could see a vein in her forehead he’d never seen before.

Xanqo tensed his jaw and kept his distance from them, his hand tensed on the pommel of his sword.

“Who is doing this?” he hissed down at them.

“Doing what?” Arya asked.

“We’ve been a bit preoccupied,” Sansa informed him, holding her iron-clad wrists up.

“We’ve had a nice, long rest down here,” Sandor said bitterly, kicking his lump of iron.

“Who is doing the killing?” Xanqo hissed again, drawing his sword. He held the point of it under Sansa’s chin. The girl delicately lifted her head to accommodate the blade pressing against her skin.

“Why? How many men are left, now?” she asked, lashes downcast.

Xanqo whipped his blade across her cheek. A thin lash of red thread opened up beneath her eye and Arya cried out, rising to her knees and Sandor felt himself shouting wordlessly, but they were all so exhausted. Sansa merely looked up at the man.

“If that scars, I’ll be quite cross,” she said sternly.

Mad. The little bird’s gone mad.

Xanqo leered and drove the tip of his blade into the raw skin of Sansa’s ankles. She cried out and Sandor smelled the perfume of her fresh blood flowing as it welled beneath her. Blunt and smooth, hers was.

Sandor snarled and struggled to stand but Xanqo kicked him in the ribs. He fell to his knees, groaning and clutching his side. _I’m sorry, little bird._

Xanqo hauled Sansa to her feet and dragged her out of the light and into the shadows. He shook her thin shoulders. “Who is doing the killings?” he seethed, sharp teeth gleaming.

Sansa’s head lolled, but she said nothing.

“If they weren’t paying me to bring you alive, I’d drink the blood from your skull,” Xanqo told her, his hand going to her throat. “But what is it the ancients would say, regarding eyes? An eye for an eye, they say...” He remembered in triumph. 

“'Leaves the world blind', I believe,” Sansa finished. She slammed her head into Xanqo’s forehead, just like Sandor had shown her to do. And then, neat as you please, Sansa’s bony white fingers plucked out the captain’s _other_ eye and ripped it free of its socket.

She stumbled back to her seat beside Sandor as the captain howled in a blind rage behind her, swinging his sword wildly.

She dropped with a heavy, exhausted sigh, her hand still clutched around Xanqo’s _fucking eye_. She squinted for a moment at the flailing captain and then shoved his eye in her mouth; swallowing it whole.

She grimaced. “Ugh,” she said to them both. “That's disgusting.”

The captain’s men came for him then, dragging the croaking man and hoisting him up.

When the men were gone and they were sealed in again to rot in the quiet, Sansa sighed happily.

“Little bird?” Sandor asked, his hand reaching to cover hers. Arya scooted closer until she could lay her head on her sister’s shoulder.

“Every night I pray for their deaths. And every time fall asleep, I dream of killing them,” Sansa said, contented. Her eyes fluttered shut as she murmured, “The gods are good.” Her head fell softly against Arya’s. She squeezed Sandor’s hand with the little strength she had left to her.

They were given no food or fresh water for two days. When the bowls of blasted porridge finally dropped through the hatch, a good portion of it splattered on the dirty floor. They were to lick it up like dogs.

“Here, girl,” Sandor said, offering Sansa his piping hot bowl. “I’ve no stomach for this shit.”

“Oh, you have to eat!” she cried weakly.

“I ate my fill.” He lied.

“Thank you, Sandor.” She let him, and reached for the offering.

She slept so soundly after eating that Sandor feared she wouldn’t wake this time. He shook her with force, mayhaps overmuch, mindful of the tears that silently streamed down Arya’s face.

Sansa laid her palm over Sandor’s where it clutched her thin shoulder. “There’s no need to yell,” she said sleepily. “Settle down. Everything will be alright.”

Hours later the hatch creaked open. Soft footsteps fell, and before Sandor could fully open his eyes to see—the torches were dashed out. They were plunged into darkness.

“If I release you, will the killings stop?” A quiet, terrified voice asked from the darkness.

“Yes,” Sansa croaked back.

The irons around their wrists and ankles were unlocked and they were brought abovedeck and allowed to eat their fill of salted pork and hard biscuits crawling with mealworms. They were given tankard after tankard of fresh water, which Arya nearly choked on after gulping so much. Sandor had to cajole Sansa into sipping hers, she was so weak. Their swords returned to them.

They watched a death-shroud wrapped body be tossed overboard. Sandor heard it land with a slim splash, as if it had decided to dive down headfirst.

There were three men left.

One of them was Xanqo, who had been bound and gagged. The blindfold around the gaping eyeless sockets of his face was, Sandor imagined, a courtesy for them who look at the man and not he himself.

“How did they perish?” Arya asked curiously.

The two remaining sailors shared a glance. “We don’t know,” one of them said.

“It was like a sickness that chose men in the night.” The other told them, wringing his kerchief in his hands. “Captain thought it was a traitor among us, but…”

“But you kept dying,” Arya answered for him.

The sailor nodded his head quickly. “It was a horrible sickness. Weeping sores and bleeding from every orifice…”

“What a horrid way to die,” Sansa said delicately. Sandor turned his head to look at her. “And we make to Yunkai by when?” she asked them. Sandor saw the color rising in her cheeks.

“In a few hours, my lady.” One quivering idiot piped up.

“Oh, dear,” Sansa sighed. “That’s not quite the answer I'd hoped for.”

Sandor glanced up at the crimson silk sails flapping in the wind and pondered. “Do you have another set of sails?” he asked the two sailors. They both nodded vigorously. “Are they red, as these are?”

“White, my lord.”

Sandor stretched, feeling the joints in his shoulders pop. “Raise them.”

When the men darted away to do as they were bid, Sandor looked at the two girls. “We should rest. The hardest part is going to be getting off the docks unseen. Then we’ll make for Meereen on horse.”

“Thank the gods. I’m so bloody tired of ships,” Sansa yawned, as beautiful and soft a sound as Sandor had ever heard.

“I’m going to sleep in the captain’s quarters,” she said, rising. She grabbed a handful of slices of dried oranges to take with her, and Arya soon followed. As Arya passed Xanqo, she leaned to whisper something in the Captain’s ear that made him jerk and twitch against his bonds as he struggled away from her.

Sandor felt a very real curl of fear, or thrill, (he often couldn’t decipher between) rise between his ribs as he watched them walk away. _What has been bred into the bloody Stark women...?_  he wondered once again before he loyally trailed after their heels.

 

* * *

 

“We’re close enough, I think,” Sansa concluded as the port of Yunkai came into view, the faint yellow city glimmering beyond it.

“I don’t know,” Sandor disagreed. “Could be a ways, yet.”

“Let’s ask the captain!” Arya sang. She leaned down to Xanqo. “What do you say, how many leagues is that? Oh, that's _right_ —you can't see.” He gargled something behind his gag.

“What’s that?” Arya asked playfully, hooking a finger to slide down the binding from his mouth. “I didn’t catch that.”

“Sons of Harpy will fall as one but rise as three—” the Captain babbled.

“Bleeyech,” Arya said in distaste. “No more of that.” She stuffed the cloth back into his mouth, quick fingers avoiding the snap of his teeth.

Sansa turned back out to the port and surveyed with the looking glass she’d stolen from the captain’s bunk. A feeling of unease settled low in her when she spotted two small sloops leave port at the same time.

“There’s two boats coming,” she said, handing the glass to Sandor. He took it and peered through.

“Maybe they make for another port,” he grumbled with weariness.

“This late in the day?” Arya scoffed. “Not bloody likely. Let me see.” She snatched the glass from Sandor, who rolled his eyes.

“They could be making for another port, I guess, but if you want to make a wager, Hound—I’ll put coin on them heading for us.”

"You have no coin." Sandor snorted, but narrowed his eyes with suspicion as he regarded the waters. “What gives you the certainty?”

She sighed and tossed the glass onto the Captain’s lap. “The royal crest. It’s painted onto the sides of ship.”

Sansa frowned and tilted her head. “Now it is, then.”

She watched as Sandor rasped his palms together, readying himself. The red, raw rings around his wrists gave her an odd, displaced, ache in her chest.

She followed him down into the pit and watched him grasp the chain leading to the hunk of raw iron his leg had been chained to. He began to swing the solid weight of it in a slow circle from the chain, gradually making it wider and wider. He tensed his jaw and swung it above him, the metal boulder swinging round so ponderously that Sansa feared if he should stumble and it crush his head. She watched the muscles in his shoulders tense and release with every swing and listened to the _fwump fwump fwump_ of the metal as it swung in circles. With a mighty swing, Sandor shifted, and the boulder came crashing down from above his head through the cog bottom.

Once more and water began rushing in.

“Alright, little bird.” He gestured, “Up you go.”

“Not yet.” Sansa said, backing away. “We have to let them free.”

The slaves had stopped rowing. The sudden lack of the sound made her tense. The quick, angry seawater lapped at her shins.

Arya dropped in with a splash. There was a ring of keys around her wrist. She sloshed through the water and began fumbling with the keys, looking for the lock. Sansa quelled her rising panic as Arya set aside one man’s manacles to look at the next man’s, and the next.

“What is it?” Sansa asked.

“There’s no lock!” Arya cried. “They’ve been forged closed.”

“Oh, Gods,” Sansa moaned, covering her mouth.

“No help for them now, girl.” Sandor grunted, wrapping a large arm around Sansa to pull her away. She kicked at him until he dropped her into the water. It was up to her waist now, at the seated slave men’s necks. They raised their faces.

“We can’t just leave them!” Sansa wailed.

“What do we do?” Arya called out. “What _can_ we do?”

“Kill us,” suggested the man nearest to Arya. Her face snapped to his.

“Kill us.” Another man agreed, nodding as the water lapped his chin. “Kill us!” came another shout.

Arya turned back and looked from Sansa to Sandor, face calm. Her eyes lingered on Sandor’s and Sansa saw it then, another one of their shared and unspoken decisions.

“NO!” Sansa sobbed.

Sandor hauled her, kicking and screaming, to where the two sailors reached down through the hole to grab hold of her flailing arms. He lifted her as if she were a doll. Sansa knew she was screaming; she could feel the force of it from her lungs and she could see the sailors wincing at her piercing shrieks, but she couldn’t hear the sound. It filled too much of her. She was it. She wore it. She couldn’t name it.

The last glance she got down through the hole was of Sandor wading towards where her sister waited, so they might share the burden of slaying the slave men. Silver fish darted through the rising waters.

She ran to the railing and spotted the small sloops coming in close now, too close. It was over. They had failed. They wouldn’t slip through these waters unnoticed.

Sandor’s hands came around her shoulders after a time, wrapping her against him and his warmth.

“It’s not over yet, girl.” He rasped reassuringly into her hair—his voice had a new roughness to it. “We’ll fight until we die.”

She gasped as the King’s Landing sloop came near enough for her to hear the calls. “Sandor, I can’t, I can’t go—” she sobbed.

“Hush. You’re alright, little bird.”

“I don’t want to go back, it's not fair, I’m not ready—” she howled.

A plank landed with a loud crash onto their decks. The two sailors stood in front of it, arms out.

Sansa watched Arya take their packs, strung together and tied to an oil cloth they’d puffed up like a bladder and heave it overboard.

Men in crimson with lions on their breastplates streamed onto the deck. Sansa could feel terror choking her. She looked to Arya, who’d left the railing with a solemn nod towards them. The bladder held. Their packs floated.

Sansa said a silent prayer and closed her eyes. She remembered to breathe. She felt Sandor leave her side and draw his sword with a roar. When she opened her eyes once more, her senses had left her again.

Darkness crept in at the corner of her eyes. She could hear nothing but blood roar. Time had slowed, it seemed, and she was seeing everything from under a veil of syrup that curled thickly around the edges of all movement around her.

 _I’m not made for this_ , she thought dully as she plunged a knife into a Lannister man’s throat. When he dropped, she turned and killed the next one.

When the men around her were felled she looked for Arya and was reassured to find her sister was still standing, twirling and cutting in her mad dance of the dispossessed. A dance of the damned.

The Hound was impatiently hacking at flesh, cutting down men to get to Sansa. She smiled sadly at him. There were sixty soldiers between them. She wished she could reach him and speak, once more, one last time—

She elbowed a man who grabbed hold of her and calmly walked to the railing.

She stabbed a man in her way and stood atop the slippery railing. The deck was awash in seawater and blood. Time to go.

She could feel Sandor’s bellow from across the decks and she could feel the sharp, wordless cry from Arya, but Sansa didn’t turn to see their faces.

_Mother, gentle his rage. Maiden, find him love. Warrior, give her strength. Father, protect her. Stranger, let them live. Take my hand instead._

Sansa stepped off the railing and plunged into the icy water. She closed her eyes, sank, and waited patiently to die.

When her forehead crested above the water and she took an instinctive gasping breath, she opened her eyes, swore, and slapped the water.

Her heavy skirts tangled around her ankles as she treaded water and struggled to remain afloat. She could hear the ringing of steel above her. She wished it would end soon. She hoped the ship would sink. One way or another, she just wished it would all end. She just wanted some gods-be-damned _peace_. 

She felt a cold curl around her ankle. Quirking a brow, she glanced down into the waters.

“Oh,” she quietly breathed. “Hello.”

She had just enough time to face the sky and take one last gasp of air before the cold curl became a cold yank and she was dragged beneath the waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i know but it's gonna hurt SO GOOD when they get to make out after all this shit gets settled. also, thank you for the comments and kind words as always! it's tremendously encouraging and sorta spurs my ass to write. yall are the best.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for attempted sexual assault

Sandor ignored the vision of Sansa going overboard as best he could. He’d called out to the girl to stop but that had been their plan, hadn’t it? To slink away in the waters with their belongings unnoticed before the soldiers arrived? Course, the timing hadn’t worked what with the ships leaving port to meet them in the waters, but maybe the little bird hadn’t been leaping to her death. Maybe she’d smiled at him sadly because they were sharing a tragic joke, slicing all these lions to pieces together, right?

Right?

 _Slice_. A Westerosi hedge knight with a blue breastplate went down.

Right?

 _Slice_. Another man fell in a sorry heap at Sandor’s feet.

Right?

 _Just fucking fight, dog,_ he thought. Sandor didn’t notice what brought about the furor until every one of his remaining opponents was distracted and facing away. He ripped his sword clean from a man’s gut by planting a boot in his chest and pushing him off his blade and spun about. Every man in the King’s Landing royal host was looking out towards the water. Arya had clung to the first mast like a little monkey, slicing at the men who climbed up after her but now she paused and watched with the rest of them.

It wasn’t until the ripple began, a muttering among the men closest to the fore deck that the riot started. What began as a slight ripple grew louder and larger until it was a cascade.

A frightened wave of shrieking soldiers came towards Sandor; scores deep as they stampeded and scrambled away from the _Sea Master_ ’s railing with such force that he had to brace his feet among the sloshing waters when the damned ship tipped backwards.

When the crowd cleared he could see why. He ran against the surging tides of panicked men to where the wolf girl clung. He grasped her ankle and ducked from the wild flash of silver dagger she swung out in answer.

“It’s me, wolf girl!” he yelled above the creaking, weary groan of the doomed ship. It was sinking.

“Did you see?” Arya shouted down to him. “Did you see—”

“Yes. Get down. We need to find Sansa.”

She reached her thin little arms out to him and he helped her down, drawing Arya to him and keeping one arm slung around her shoulders.

He thought of hazarding one glance back over the railing—No. Nothing but the terrified screams of doomed men were behind him. Best not to look back.

When they reached the bulwark where Sansa had lept, he grasped the wolf girl’s arm tightly and they jumped out into the waters.

He opened his eyes when they plunged down, feeling the sting of salt. He grasped the wolf girl’s arm harder. Under water and a few leagues ahead he saw a colossal orange lump. The orange shifted and it wasn’t orange, it was wine-purple and gigantic swirls— _Gods_ —It was—

His head broke the surface and he shook his hair out of his eyes with a quick jerk of his face. Little Arya spluttered up next to him.

They treaded water in silence to watch as an enormous tentacled arm the size of an ancient weirwood tree unfurled out of the water and curled itself around the one remaining sloop full of soldiers from King’s Landing. Its colors swirled, flushing angrily from orange to purple to blood red to orange again as it tightened its mighty coil around the ship until the deck cracked. Spots of crimson screamed, streaks of silver flashing in their hands as they jumped overboard. The arm then raised the boat out from the water so that the whole dripping mess was suspended in air. With a foul crunch, the ship slammed back into the water, splintering into a hundred pieces. The blow sent Sandor and Arya back into the bulwark of the sunken _Sea Master_ , now underwater save the creaking, leaning masts.

Sandor hissed as his back collided painfully with railing. He still hadn’t let go of the wolf girl’s arm and worried he’d held it so tightly that it had dislocated from her shoulder.

She hacked and hocked up sea water and phlegm. She surveyed the chaos with a sharp, keen eye.

“Ground glass,” she shouted suddenly, girlish voice rising above the sounds of men drowning in terror and sea alike.

“What?” Sandor asked, stupid with terror. He kept glancing around them, manic, crazed, for a glimpse of the right kind of red.

“That’s how I killed off the sailors!” Arya shouted above the din.

Sandor stared at her, startled, and let her words settle like seabed silt.

Arya pushed the dark wet hair out of her eyes. “Shards of glass ground so fine that you can slip it in drink. They suck it back in ale and next it cuts through gut and bowel—it tears them up from the inside out.”

“How?” he asked, incredulous. “ _How!_?” he bellowed once more.

“I don’t know!” she crowed gleefully, grinning.

The right kind of red floated towards them on a cresting water swell, facedown on a set of planks.

Sandor nearly died at the sight. Arya cried out and swam for Sansa, trying to rouse her. Sandor held the planks steady to let her crawl on them. When Arya turned Sansa over, her lips were an alarming blue. Sandor felt the despairing moan leave his lips before he had any sense to temper it with. The little bird was dead.

The blind captain floated along beside them. He’d been tied, still alive, to their gently bobbing belongings.

Three ships had been sunk. The water was littered with broken wood and wailing bloody men. It was a scene that nearly reminded Sandor of the Blackwater Battle. Minus the kraken, though.

They surged forward, then, on the crest of an insistent wave. Sandor’s arm shot out to secure their belongings. Something brushed the backs of his legs in passing and Sandor imagined it to likely be the bloated body of a drowned knight swirling dead in the waters, stirred up again.  

Wave after blessed wave pushed them closer to shore and left the royal host floundering in the churning waters behind them. Sandor decided to think about that later.

Sandor’s feet touched pebble and rubble and he pushed the planks to dry land before sloshing through grey blue waters to haul in their packs. And the spluttering, muttering, bound and blinded captain.

He fell to his knees in front of the little bird’s body. Arya sobbed over her dead sister, and furious, pounded futilely on Sansa’s chest once as she cried. She closed her fist and did it again, striking the little bird with such force that Sandor’s heart nearly wrenched for the wretched little orphan wolf girl. He held out a hand to stop her when Sansa’s arm jerked.

Pushing Arya aside, Sandor closed his fist and brought it down with a thump squarely in the center of Sansa’s chest, exactly as her sister did.

Sansa’s eyes flew open. She coughed and looked at Sandor and then Arya.

“I made a new friend,” she croaked in a small voice.

She then turned away and vomited sea water.

“Oh, gods.” Sandor rasped, dropping his head into his hands. “Oh _gods_.”

Arya sighed and stared up into the bright late afternoon sunlight with a small smile. She looked down and pulled the gag from Xanqo.

“Where’s the best place to get a hot meal in Yunkai?” she asked her new favorite toy. 

 

* * *

They were at an inn far from the harbor, slurping up spicy, oily stew that swam with chunks of goat, red lentils, and dark green leaf. Once Sansa’s hands had stopped shaking long enough to hold a spoon, she’d eaten one full bowl and then asked for another. And another.

Sandor wouldn’t stop touching her.

He’d reach out to rub her hair between his fingers as it dried; wavy and wild, rough with sea water. He’d put his hand on the small of her back as he helped her up the inn steps. Even now, he kept brushing against her at the table as they ate. Sansa knew that he was assuring himself that she was still there and not some spectre. They’d all seen enough strange things now that Sansa couldn’t fault him for it. She rather liked it. Any time she’d taken a few steps too far for Sandor’s liking, he’d gently reach for her arm and reel her back towards him.

Sansa’s chapped lips were burning from the spices in the stew but it felt decadent still.

They were all sleeping in the same room tonight. She, Arya, Sandor, and their captive captain.

 _That’s what you get,_ Sansa thought to herself as she dug her spoon in. _No more men. No more eyes. Soon no Yunkish tongue to spread yellow lies—_

Arya belched loudly across the table. Sansa stared at her, aghast, before feeling the font of absurd laughter bubbling up beneath her and her face crack wide into a smile. Arya grinned sheepishly and then laughed with her. None of them had spoken much.

Later they piled onto the straw mattress—Arya nearest the wall, Sansa in the middle, and Sandor at the edge nearest the door. He swung his heavy arm over Sansa and drew her close. With her belly full of food for the first time in days and days, Sansa wondered if maybe she _had_ died, drowned down in the waters and this was one of the minor heavens now. She fell asleep imagining a heaven populated simply with her two living, breathing homes sleeping soundly and safely on either side of her.

The rude piercing morning sun woke her first.

A rude knock on the door seconds after ensured she stayed awake.  

“Ten more minutes,” Arya groggily groaned into her pillow as the loud knock insisted entrance once more.

Sansa turned to look at Sandor over her shoulder. He regarded her steadily with alert, sharp steel eyes.

“We’ve gotten this far, I suppose.” She murmured to his lips. He kissed her softly and rose first, drawing his sword.

“Get up, Arya.” Sansa wearily shook her sister. “Someone’s here to try killing us again.”

Arya snorted into her pillow.

The Hound cut down the first four men to enter but too many streamed in. Sansa stood and sighed and unsheathed her sharp little knife.

Arya was sluggishly moving about with her knife in hand, stabbing crabbily at her attackers. Her hair stuck up in odd places, disheveled from her deep sleep. One dishonorable cad saw the opportunity and yanked her sister’s head back by a hank of hair—Arya growled and sliced her knife through the length of her own hair to free herself.

 _She always hated being woken up_ , came Sansa's wry thought.

Sandor came to aid Sansa but she shook him off and pointed him towards Arya, who had two men pulling her arms behind her back as they dragged her from the room.

“I”ll be fine,” Sansa insisted, stepping out of the reach of a man who’d grasped at her throat. She swung her knife out and felt it tear through tunic and tummy. “Go help her.”

Sandor growled but turned, impatiently swinging his great broadsword through the meat and bone of a young guard as he left the room. Sansa idly wondered when she stopped seeing these men as men and began seeing them as meat.

She heard the scuffles in the hallway of more men and got distracted from it. One man captured her wrist and wrung it up behind her until she dropped her dragger. She flailed and kicked her legs out, but then felt hands close around her ankles. She didn’t realize she was alone in a room with five well-armed men until it was too late. They dragged her down to the bed that had been a certain kind of heaven only moments earlier. 

The man kneeling on her legs as she fought to free herself was wearing blue. There was a chicken on his tunic, or a rooster, maybe, but Sansa thought either way it looked very stupid.

“We saw a play in Braavos,” he smiled down at her. “The prettiest girl in the seven kingdoms was married off to the ugliest man—a twisted little imp.”

His manners were unnerving her. She didn’t want to be raped by a polite knight, she’d rather be ravaged by savage men who she _knew_ deserved to die for it. Men who presented as monsters.

“He raped her nightly,” the man told her nicely. His eyes were too close-set. He had a well-trimmed brown beard like her father has. Had. A beard like her father once had.

“I’m doing you a favor,” the kind knight added, hastily pushing her skirts up around her waist. “You should know the feel of a real man’s cock at least once.”

She dimly registered as the soldier fumbled with his trousers and then pawed under Sansa’s skirts. She felt his cold fingers and something else stiff and insistent poking at her.

He looked down between them and then with false cheer said, “Pity, the pretty little Stark bitch is in her courses. You’re lucky I’m not squeamish.”

“That’s not my blood,” Sansa said.

His face paled suddenly. A dark stain spread out from his groin area. The nice man got off Sansa and staggered back.

“Why...there’s so much blood...” he murmured, confused.

“It’s yours, ser.” Sansa informed him politely.

Arya was standing behind him, fierce and furious, when the monster-in-disguise fell to the cold stone floor and died.

The Hound came in then, sword dripping with blood. He spotted the men holding Sansa down, her skirts bunched rudely around her waist. They made for the exit when The Hound stalked towards them with a frightening roar, but only their heads made it out the door. 

And then there was quiet.

“I’m going back to bed,” Arya grumbled crankily as she stepped over the bodies blocking the bed. She flounced herself face down on the mattress, exhausted. “Goodnight.”

Sansa sat up and arranged her skirts more artfully. She held her hand out to Sandor and waited for him to take it. When he did, she pulled him down onto the bed next to her.

“I should stay awake,” he rasped quietly. “There could be more coming.”

“There’s a hundred or more City Watch corpses floating in the bay and twenty men dead on the floor,” Sansa whispered. “Let them come.”

 

* * *

  

A week later, they had been riding for three days on stolen mounts with saddle bags packed to the brim with stolen food and coin. The blind captain stumbled as he followed, bound hands tied by a length of chain to Sandor’s pommel. Their bellies were full and Yunkai was now just a gold smear on the horizon behind them. They'd lapsed into an hours long companionable silence of shared exhaustion.

"I think I shall begin wearing breeches," Sansa announced thoughtfully.

They fell silent once more.


	22. Chapter 22

“Come here, little pretty,” Sansa whispered, cajoling a jade green lizard into her palm. “Come on.”

Arya eyed her sister warily. “You aren’t going to eat it, are you?”

Sansa had given Arya a scathing look in reply when she glanced down and let loose a small cry of wordless delight as the lizard crawled onto her wrist. It scuttled up a bit to sun itself on her freckled forearm.

Sansa slowly lifted her forefinger to pat the lizard’s little triangle head. When she took a droplet of water from her tin cup and let it fall from her fingertip to forearm for the lizard, Sandor took a breath as if to bark at her for it, but withheld it instead. He bit his tongue when she smiled at the animal—that slow smile of hers, the smile that Sandor knew would begin soft and small but rise like the sun.

Sandor cracked his knuckles and clenched his hands into fists, checking the sky again.

They’d been riding for a week, probably more, through golden-red desert. Their thin, willowy horses ambled along easily under the sun’s baking heat but Sandor had begun to worry for them all. Their stores of food were still high but the water they carried had begun to run low. Not a single cloud had tempted them with a promise of rain.

In any direction they looked, it was nothing but a wide, flat expanse of hard packed, sun-blasted yellow earth, broken only by the blue line of the horizon where sky began and tall grasses that whispered like straight razors when rubbed together under the low, hot winds.

They’d stopped under a long-dead scorched tree. It was the only break in the monotony of the landscape and it was a towering dead thing, with clawed bare branches scraping sky like the skeletal hands of the damned. It offered little shade. While Sandor’s skin browned in the sun, Sansa and the wolf girl both had peeling sunburns. Sansa’s face and arms were freckling mightily, but if the girl was bothered from it; she gave no sign. Sandor permitted himself a brief moment of indulgent self-hatred for not taking better care of the bloody fucking Stark girls, creatures of the North and _cold_. He should have been more prepared to bring them into a desert fucking plain.  

Sansa stood and stretched and Sandor had to duck his head and busy himself with unrolling and re-rolling his shirtsleeve. Sansa had taken Arya’s spare breeches to wear and even though Sansa was still thin from days of starvation, she’d had to leave the laces undone of her younger sister’s pants to wear them. She’d tried to take a spare tunic from Arya, too, but hadn’t been able to stuff her breasts into it once she’d dragged the hem over her head and squeezed her arms through thin sleeves.

So now she wore Sandor’s. It was a threadbare thin linen undertunic and it came nearly to her knees. When she stood and stretched like that—

Sandor cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, blinking.

He watched as Sansa poured some of her scarce water into Xanqo’s open and waiting mouth. She murmured soothing nonsense to him and stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. Xanqo had been particularly conspicuous in his Yunkish nobleman’s garb, and they’d lost most of their clothing when their heavy trunks sank with his ship. Xanqo was now wearing Sansa’s old dress, sleeves ripped free and unlaced in the front to fit. Rather than wearing it herself, Sansa had strapped an absurd flat straw hat to the man’s head to spare _him_ burns from the punishing sun.

They didn’t need to gag the man anymore. He was quiet now, except the odd mutterings of subdued thanks and praise for Sansa as she fed or watered him like she did their mounts.

Sandor had the words for what he thought he was seeing but he couldn’t rightly put the name to any of little fucking _Sansa Stark’s_ actions. Reasonably he knew that what he witnessed was a man who’d been tortured into submission by his captor, but Sandor couldn’t fathom words like _torture_ or _captor_ with any actions of gentle little Sansa. _Mad_ at most, or maybe _moon-brained_ at times…

He pictured the little bird’s face again as she thrust a spear into the soldier’s back. The soldier who’d been attacking Sandor. Just as quickly as he saw it in his head, he let his thoughts push it back into darkness. Best not dwell.

Sandor took a small swig of water and held it in his mouth before swallowing.

Arya was now splayed out with her shirt pulled over her face, head propped on a blackened tree root as her pale belly turned pink in the sun. The sun was so hot against Sandor’s skin that he marveled at how recently he’d been imprisoned in a dank ship infected by dampness borne of cold seeping waters.

Sansa pulled up the hem of Sandor’s undertunic to wipe the sweat from her face. He saw her navel for the first time and memorized it. His eyes darted up to Sansa’s when she let the shirt drop, but it was too late—she’d already seen him staring. She smiled slyly, and sat down beside him.

The pink rising in her cheeks was pretty but Sandor thought her face was still too thin. He wanted to see her hale and plump again. In good health.

He reached over her suddenly and rustled in his pack, fishing out a strip of dried beef. He held it out to her. She took it and thanked him quietly, tearing it into little pieces to eat. Arya began to emit a soft snore.

Sansa winced, pausing with food in her mouth to gingerly press her fingertips to her cracked and bleeding lips. _The salt from the cured meat must be stinging something awful_ , Sandor thought, and cursed himself for yet another example of his ineptitude. He reached into his pack for something, _anything_ to help her chapped lips.

Enough food to last them weeks more, and yet they were lacking in one of the most basic necessities—a healing ointment or salve. His hand stilled when his fingers touched the rough ceramic little corked pot full of honey. They’d taken plenty of it, “the liquid Yunkish gold,” so that they might use it to trade when they reached Meereen. He tugged it out and popped the cork free with his thumb.

“Here, girl.” Sandor set the small clay pot on the ground and pulled Sansa’s wrist until she scooted closer to him. He held the back of her head with one hand and dipped his thumb into the honey, made smooth and thin in the heat. He raised it to her lips and lightly rubbed it across them, hushing her quietly when she squirmed.

“There. That will help. Don’t li—Sansa!” he grumbled. “ _Don’t lick it off_!”

“Sorry!”

He carefully reapplied the makeshift salve to her and when finished, popped the pad of his thumb in his mouth and to suck any residual stickiness from it. Sansa was pressing her lips together, smoothing the syrup as a woman does with lip rouge.

“If you two start kissing—I’ll stab you both.” Arya muttered irritably, her shirt raised over her face and pulling both arms up limply into the hot air, “Even _Xanqo_ knows what you’re doing.”

Sandor jerked away from Sansa and leaned back on his elbows, scowling. Sansa stretched out next to him, her freckled forearms arms folded to block the sun from her face. While her face was covered, Sandor allowed his gaze to roam over her fine little body and the way his shirt draped over it so fucking _indecently_. He could see the points of her small nipples raised up towards the sky. Sandor had discovered when Sansa started wearing his shirt that whenever she shifted and settled, her breasts stilled a moment after every other part of her stopped moving. It made his mouth water, which was a peculiar kind of agony given their current conditions. Could be dangerous, mouth watering like that when one considers how little water there was left to give himself. Nothing to be done.

Sandor raised one knee and hoped Sansa hadn’t noticed why. He folded an arm behind his head so he could regard Xanqo, who was peacefully sitting cross-legged in a girl’s green dress beneath a black tree in a yellow desert, nothing save buzzards and blank blue sky behind him.

After a moment, Sandor tilted his head towards Sansa.

“That’s _two_ men you’ve blinded now, little bird,” he told her matter-of-factly.

Sansa lowered her arms from her face and squinted at him. Once she understood his meaning, her face cracked into a sudden smile so bright that Sandor felt struck dumb and blind all over again. She laughed then, surprising him with a pearly peal of laughter that rang like cheery chimes of sept bells. It pleased Sandor to no end. He wanted to claim that laughter as his own creation. He wanted to have it sewn onto a banner so he could unfurl the length of it over his head and strut beneath his own accomplishment.

When Sandor lay his head down again and faced the sky, he saw a quiet cavalry of rain clouds that had crept up to anoint blue sky. He marveled at the perfect hallucination until a low, buttery rumble of thunder rolled out from the horizon and fat, _warm_ rain drops blessed his skin. He let himself grin for the first time in gods-know-when. 

 

* * *

Sansa had pulled the length of her long red hair into her fists and was holding the mass off her neck, eyes closed against the glare of the sun. Her hips rolled with every step of her horse’s languid gait. She steered with her knees.

She felt free. She wasn’t certain she had enough cause to feel as such, but nonetheless, she could count blessings in many.

For one, her belly was full. For two, three days ago they’d had a burst of rain so sweet and short that it afforded them just enough time to fumble for their casks and horns to hold in wait, open mouths raised to the rain right when their water had nearly run out. Sansa was enumerating varied blessings, whispering her gratitude to whatever gods might see fit to hear it:  _Thank you for this, thank you for him, thank you for her_.

She could also safely parade about in a large man’s undertunic, which felt as if she wore a nightgown. The looseness it afforded her had been a true comfort in the desert heat.  She could wear whatever she felt comfortable in and there was no one around to see her in this state save her sister, Sandor, and—she glanced sidelong at the quiet captain who walked beside her mount.

Well. No one save Sandor and Arya, then.

The one problem with this form of freedom is that suddenly Sansa had become very aware of her breasts. Walking around without wearing a dress with a tight bodice that strapped and bound her bosom safely down to her chest meant that Sansa felt every jostle and shake. She’d refused to take her horse into a trot and then refused to say why. _Because breasts are quite heavy_  was not an explanation that would ever pass her lips to Sandor or Arya—who’d mock her for an eternity.

“You’re so lucky.” Sansa sighed to her sister.

“For what?” Arya asked suspiciously.

Sansa looked ahead to make sure Sandor and his horse still walked a few paces in front and then dropped her hair to frown at her sister and clasp her hands over her more ample breasts in explanation.

Arya snorted and then faced forward.

Her sister stared ahead at Sandor’s back for a long moment and then took a quick breath. She spoke to Sansa without looking at her, “I know you love him and he loves you, but you can’t actually marry him, you know.”

“I’m _already_ married.”

“That doesn’t count,” Arya scoffed. “The imp is likely dead, anyway.”

“Strange how you’ve taken an interest in my marital and political machinations, sister.”  

“You’re the heir to Winterfell,” was Arya’s flat explanation.

“We don’t know that. Not really.” Sansa heard the soft denial in her own throat as she spoke. "Bran could be—or Jon—"

“Don't be stupid. Sansa, you can’t marry the Hound. So,” Arya scowled. “So there.”

“I can do whatever I please,” Sansa said loftily, spurring her mount. “I _am_ the heir to Winterfell, after all.”

She pulled her reins back when she fell beside Sandor. He looked over at her and gave her a smile that met his eyes, a smile that pulled at his scars in a way Sansa thought couldn’t possibly be comfortable for him. He’d gifted her an expression that no one else would ever see. Sansa tucked the memory of it into herself to keep safe.

Sansa briefly imagined dismounting to drag him down from his horse so he could kiss her in the hot dirt.

She took a deep breath and became very aware of her breasts again. And so, it seemed, had Sandor.

She watched as he reached for the skin of water slung over his shoulder and popped the cork from it. She watched the lump on his throat bob with every swallow as he tipped his head back and pulled from it greedily. Sansa sighed and inhaled deep, wearily pressing her hands into her lower back. She indulgently stretched her back into an arc to soothe her aching muscles, sore from long hours spent laying on hard ground and sitting upright in a funny little foreign saddle.

She smiled to herself when Sandor then choked and sputtered.

“Are we nearly there?” Arya, ever-disruptive, called out from behind them.

Sandor offered his water to Sansa, still coughing into his forearm. She took it and shot a glare over her shoulder to Arya. In return, Arya tilted her head and very seriously, slowly crossed her eyes until Sansa couldn’t help but laugh.

Sandor cleared his throat, wiping his mouth with his hand. “We’ve got to be close. Innkeeper said it was a week’s journey if we rode hard.”

“WHICH we haven’t been,” Arya called out, accusation lancing her tone. Sansa could feel her sister’s deliberate stare on her back so she shrugged, unapologetic.

“Ask Xanqo,” Sandor rasped with a tilt of his jaw towards the man walking with them. They’d removed Xanqo’s chains a few days ago.  

“Let’s call him something else,” Arya said. “—that name leaves such an unpleasant taste in my mouth.” She looked across at Xanqo, cheerily calling out to him, “Is that alright with you, Captain?” Xanqo whipped his face up towards her voice and after a beat, nodded.

“Let’s see, let’s see.” Arya thoughtfully drummed her fingers across her chin. “Captain Cabbage!”

“No,” Sansa scoffed. “That’s far too silly.”

“No, you wouldn’t want a grown man tromping around the desert in a girl’s dress to feel _silly_ ,” Sandor said sardonically, raising his brows at her.

Sansa playfully wrinkled her nose at Sandor. She looked off, musing. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “I know—let’s name him Water.”

“That could work,” Arya said behind her. “We’ll say we walked with Water through miles of burning desert!”

“We’ll say Water tried forcing us into a wet grave and in retaliation we took Water as our prisoner,” Sandor shot back.

“We’ll say Water has many different phases,” Sansa decided, ending the discussion. She looked over at where the blind man trudged along. “Water can quench dead earth and turn it green with new life or it can dry up and disappear completely,” she warned him gently.

He smiled and turned his face up towards the sun. “It is also essential for living,” Water added slowly, considering. “I like this name.”

When the sky began to darken, Sandor squinted at the distant eastern horizon, wary over how it was lit up despite the sun setting at their backs.

“Wolf girl, do you have the spy glass?” he asked, craning back in his saddle to face Arya.

She fished for a moment in her pockets and pulled out the lens they’d requisitioned from the ship. She tossed it to Sandor and he caught it one-handed, arm swooping to wrap his hand around it. He pulled back on his reins and stilled his horse, so Sansa did as well. Water blundered into her horse’s flank, earning a mean cackle from Arya.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized in haste, blushing. “We’ve paused for a moment, Water.”

Grim-faced, Sandor lowered the spy glass and wordlessly handed it over to Sansa, crooking one elbow out to lay his palm atop his thigh as he stared ahead. She raised it to her own eyes, scanning the horizon until she spotted Sandor’s cause for concern and then, sighing, turned in her saddle to clumsily toss the spy glass back to her sister. Arya looked and then swore.

“What is happening?” Water hesitantly asked. “...My lady?”

“There is a very large encampment outside the walls of Meereen,” Sansa told him while Sandor dismounted and untied his bedroll, his movements quick and jerky with his futile fury. They'd have to stop for the night.

Sansa squinted at the rapidly darkening horizon and could now make out the distant dark shapes of the five trebuchet she’d seen in the spy glass, jutting up from the sand’s hardpacked flatness like the dripping fangs of a giant dragon’s gaping maw. If only their trip hadn’t been so delayed by absolute betrayal, then Sansa would have made it inside the gates in time to warn Queen Daenerys of what she’d learned in the pleasure houses of Selhorys—that the army of Brown Ben Plumm and the Second Sons were on their way to sack her city.

As fate would have it, however, there was now hostile encampment crouched like a parasite at the gates—one with enough tents raised to house two thousand soldiers—between they and Meereen. She couldn’t yet imagine how they’d manage to enter the city. Sansa swallowed her panic and tried not to think about how through the spyglass she’d seen one of those colossal wooden beasts flinging pale and bloated dead bodies against the city’s outer walls. They’d splattered against brick like blighted birds.   


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter where Sandor glowers, Sansa flirts, and Arya plays with daggers!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoooo sorry for another long delay in updating this! i got a somewhat unpleasant comment on this awhile back and it kinda..left a bad taste in my mouth. i'm a writer irl but i do the fanfic thing because my heart hurts, i love these characters so much--constructive crit is welcome 4 sure, but come on now! don't be mean about my own golldang asoiaf fantasies! this is an outlet that, for w/e reason, i deeply need from time to time, usually around dark times in my life. 
> 
> on that note, i'm overjoyed that there are people who read this and get something from it, because i get a deep satisfaction from writing it. literally, these are daydreams of mine. okay luv u bYEE

They’d stopped to make camp that night, still leagues away from where the mercenaries sat like a scab at the entrance of Meereen. They lit no fire, lest they be spotted as a single flickering brightness behind the soldiers, the only ominous light in an otherwise night-blackened void of eternal desert.

Sandor had grown brazen with his canteen as the tall gates of the city were spotted long before the obstacle was—he’d gulped it heedlessly, slaking his thirst whenever he felt the need. Surely there would be water awaiting them in the city— _Just one more day_ , he’d told himself.

 _Stupid_ , he cursed himself, bitter and derisive. And thirsty. _Again_.

Sansa had fared much the same with her ration of rainwater, though Arya, bless her, still had some left and would occasionally offer a sip to her sister. They ate none of the salted and dried meat in their packs, fearing it would only quicken their thirst. Even Water wouldn’t eat the strips of beef when offered.

So they lay about in the ink-black desert night, silent as stones, still as well water, listening only to the howling, hot wind. They were hungry.

“Maybe there’s a way to scale the walls,” Arya eventually whispered, little voice consuming their large, heavy silence.

“We’d be spotted,” Sansa dismissed. “We can’t safely climb under cover of darkness. They’d see us crawling up the walls and either the Second Sons or the Meereen guards would shoot us down with flaming arrows.”

Arya sighed, acquiescing.

“Plus, we have no tools to scale the walls,” Sansa added.

“Alright, I _get_ it! It won’t work. Do _you_ have any better ideas?” Arya’s sharp tongue cut back.

“Surely there’s a sewer entrance you’re small enough to fit through,” Sansa suggested.

“Oh, of course, only I could be the one to do that—wouldn’t want pretty Sansa to get all dirty, now would we?”

“That’s not why I—”

“Enough.” Sandor’s quiet, grating rasp silenced them.

After a petulant pause, Sansa spoke up again. “Arya, couldn’t you do that—that _darkness melting_ trick you’ve picked up?”

Arya snorted. “And then what? Make my way to the Dragon Queen and say, _‘Hello, yes please, open the gates for my family?’_ ” She adopted a silly, high voice: “ _‘Oh no, My Queen, that enemy camped at the gate is incidental—don’t mind them!_ ’”

Sansa huffed. Her bedroll rustled as she flounced and turned to her other side, back now to Arya.

“We’ll have to march on,” Sandor decided. He scrubbed a weary palm across his forehead, skating the burn scars. “We’ll pretend to be refugees—anything. They’re mercenaries, they won’t be interested in us.”

“But how will we get into the city?” Arya insisted.

“We’ll answer that question when it comes. First, we need more water—we won’t last a day in this damned desert heat without it.”

Sansa hummed a quiet, thoughtful noise of agreement. Her hand fumbled for his in the dark, and he let her find it. He marveled at the softness of her skin against his. Despite everything these small hands had touched, cut, _killed_ —how could she still feel so soft?

He rubbed her hand between his calloused fingers, tracing every delicate line of her palm. She hummed again, contented.

He brought her knuckles to his lips and brushed them in some bastard-light version of the kiss he wanted to take from her. He felt the happy shudder travel from her shoulders to her wrist, her hand still clasped in his.

And then there was a knife at his neck.

“I. Said. No. _Kissing_!” Arya hissed through her teeth. She was straddling his chest, dagger under his chin.

“Arya!” Sansa cried, sitting bolt upright. “Let him go! Get off him!”

Arya sniffed and slithered off Sandor’s chest. “I warned you both.”

“Arya— _honestly_!” Sansa sounded mortified.

After recovering from the initial shock of having the wolf girl’s dagger at his throat, Sandor chuckled. It came out low and warm as it rumbled from his chest, a genuine amusement.

“ _What_?” Arya snapped, irritated. “I don’t know what’s so funny. I _will_ kill you.”

Sandor stifled his dark laugh with a broad palm. “Aye, that you will. And good on you for it. Sleep well, wolf girl. You've defended your sister’s honor well this night.”

The rustling sounds of Arya’s movements slowed when she settled down again atop her bedroll. Sandor had not one wit how the girl could move so fast, and with such a terrifying silence, but he chalked it up to the same wicked magic both the Stark girls seemed to be steeped in. A magic, he theorized, which appeared to grow stronger as they grew up.

He stared up at the immense dusting of silver stars glittering above him, blinking and teeming in the dark and cloudless desert sky.  Sansa’s hand left her blankets and silently sought his again. There was nothing of romance in the gesture, it was a comfort she sought. His human warmth.

He’d laughed in earnest with Arya’s knife at his throat, remembering how he’d snarled and bit and fought at Sansa when they began traveling together—had he not he feared taking advantage of her, after all? Hadn’t his soul quaked with his desperate _wanting_ , underscoring the looming terror of being unable to control himself around her?

After all his fears, it appeared his wishes have been granted—so long as the wolf girl was around to choke Sandor’s leash back, he need not fear for the state of Sansa’s maidenhead. She was safe, from him—with them. Worth a laugh, at least, this black night.

* * *

They broke their fast on honey, uncorking another precious jar and tipping small sips down their throats. Water smacked his lips and hummed, licking the traces of a decadent breakfast from his lips.

They’d argued long and hard about what roles to assume as they approached the mercenaries that morning. Sansa’s favored subterfuge was to ply their sympathies, to use her silver tongue to spin a sad tale about a ship crashing and riches lost. Arya’s opinion was that of “ _the lesser, the better_ ,” and thought their hilted daggers and swords would be talk plenty enough. Sandor tried in vain to convince both girls to pose as missionaries—Septas—he was charged with dragging through the blighted desert. His desperate hope was that any untoward interest the girls garnered once entering the encampment (two _thousand_ men—who knows when they’ve last seen a lass so comely as _Sansa_!?) would be reined back once it was known they were women of the cloth, and chaste virgin ones at that.

Arya’d sneered at that. Sandor could read the words as easy as day in her snarl: _Let them try_.

So _that_ idea was scrapped. Sansa could’ve pulled it off, perhaps, but Sandor was of the mind that Arya was too feral, anyhow, to ever act as a Septa.

They’d bandied about other suggestions: circus performers, whores, (Arya’s thought, Sandor growled) war refugees, never settling until Water’s soft suggestion cut across their heated voices.

“If I may, my lady?” he asked, voice quavering with nerves.

“What is it, Water?” Sansa replied warmly, knowing the blind man addressed only her.

“The Dragon Queen, she...is having certain _sympathies_ , yes? It is a benefit, I think, posing as escaped slaves. She is most sensitive to...the plight of slavery.” By the time he finished speaking, he was recoiling, and Sandor knew what the pathetic man was anticipating: scathing words, maybe even strikes and blows about his own proclivity to owning slaves. Sandor himself sneered, recalling this very man once saying of his own slaves, “ _They are not men, but oars_.”

But Sansa only murmured as she considered Water’s suggestion with thoughtful care. She nodded after a moment.

“That,” she turned back towards her mounted companions, “—is quite the idea. Very good, Water.” He straightened with the praise.

“Perhaps others will be sympathetic to us as slaves? Offer water?” Sansa asked, satisfied that whatever tragic back story she imagined for them would suffice.

“Yes,” Arya agreed. “And we can say we defeated our masters—we slayed them. Then we fought our way across the desert. That makes them less likely to mess with us.”

Sandor wasn’t so quick to agree. His mind overturned with the dark possibilities lurking inside men’s minds who sheltered pretty, escaped slaves—would these men demand gratitude from Sandor’s young charges?  Would they attempt to _take_ it from the girls?

Not while he lived, obviously. Nor with little Arya and her quick daggers. But sweet, warm, trusting Sansa…

Sweet Sansa, who’d plucked out a man’s eyes.

Arya spurred her mount, kicking up dust as she took point and left them coughing sand behind her. Sansa neatly clucked her tongue, issuing the order for both the beast between her legs and the blind man beside her to trod on.

Sandor sighed. It was a great difficulty, admitting to himself that Sansa wasn’t totally without defense. She’d asked him to teach her some things with swords, yes, but he knew where her strengths truly lie.

He snorted at the absurdity of it. No, Sansa was _far_ from defenseless, much as he would like to pretend as such. The girl (— _woman? No, not yet,_ girl _still_ —) was made of fucking steel.

He clicked his teeth and gave a light kick. His horse cantered, but didn’t yet catch up. Seven hells, but he missed Stranger.

He knew, with aching precision, exactly why he persisted in his inaccurate thinking that Sansa needed him to protect her.

He stared at her ahead of him: straight-backed in her saddle, hips rolling in time with the mount’s easy movements. Elegant and noble, ever the lady, despite her ragged apparel made gauzy in the bright sun.

He swallowed, throat thick and dry, and clenched his pommel. There would come a time, suggested one bleak, _evil_ thought; when she would not need Sandor anymore. She would grow up. She would move on, and she would cast him aside.

He glowered, simmering in his imminent rage, as he imagined Sansa’s affections turning from him. There was a war in their futures, he knew, and he himself was too damned ugly to ever play the part of that war’s hero. Sure, he’d fight—pledge his serve to this lady ‘til his dying day—he would. But more heroes would rise in Sansa’s eyes, and these heroes would be unburned and unbroken men with broad smiles unfettered by twisted scars. That was who the girl deserved, the girl who so loved all her bloody fanciful love stories as a child. She'd find herself a comely landed knight, one with a title. She deserved the glory of an epic love, one like what the bards sung.

The day grew brighter and Sandor darkened, envisioning his—no, not his, not now, not ever— _the_ little bird’s bright future with a faceless handsome knight. The harder his heart ached, the more fixed was the snarl upon his face.

By the time they reached the outer edges of the Second Sons’ encampment, Sandor was feeling particularly savage.  His dark daydreams and the immediate dangers awaiting in the tents ahead of them had turned his mood foul and fierce.

Sansa dismounted and stretched—chest angled, he saw, in his direction though Sandor had already made himself too miserable to take pleasure in it. Much pleasure, anyhow.

They followed the scent of stewed meats through the outskirts of the camp, hungry stomachs and fearsome thirst navigating their way through the silence of curious and wary stares. Once they’d found the source of the scent, they tied the horses to tall tent posts outside it. Sansa asked Water to “ _Watch the mounts, please_ ” and then cringed at her tactless choice of words. But Water only nodded and looped his hands through the reins, affixing himself to their horses.

They pulled back the flap of the tent and hot air, thick with steam and spices, assaulted them. Sandor winced and began sweating. He stepped in front of the girls, putting his massive size between he and whoever occupied the kitchens tent. He knew how his big blasted body would demand more attention at first, no matter who they found. He simply took up too much room. 

The steam cleared and he saw a stout cook, plump as an overripe fruit, plucking seeds from his teeth. An enormous cauldron of stew bubbled and boiled merrily nearby, and this was what caused the tent to choke with hot steam. The cook himself had prodigious rings of yellow sweat staining his undershirt and every visible inch of his pink skin was slick with perspiration. Beside the man, rippling when he stood suddenly at having unexpected guests, was a large wooden cask full of clear, sweet water—a drinking ladle perched on its rim.

“We need water,” Sandor croaked. His voice was hoarse from sand and thirst and hunger, but it came out strong anyway. The stout cook just stared up at Sandor, mouth agape in confusion.

“We’re escaped slaves, my lord.” Sansa stepped out from behind Sandor’s arm, which he’d outstretched in an attempt at warding the girls.

Oh, _Sansa_ got his attention alright.

The cook’s gaze left Sandor and swung down to Sansa, and with a sinking feeling, Sandor watched the other man’s thoughts turn greedy, plain on his fucking face.

“I’ve water,” the cook agreed too easily. “I’ve water aplenty if that pretty one there lifts linen and shows me her t—”

Two things happened at once: Sandor drew his sword, the steel flashing in a split-second hiss as it left his sheath and made for the cook’s ripe, taut gut.

But—at the same time—the cook’s eyes were alit with pleasure. An incongruous delight. A kind of pleasure that _does not come from having a sword point poking into one’s belly_.

Sandor whirled around, snarl at the ready, in time to see Sansa lowering her shirt. He saw her navel for the _second_ time as the hem fluttered town. Arya, as ever, was scowling.

“You—” he growled, blind in his anger. Too angry at her to even speak.

“ _What_? I’m thirsty,” she said in a sullen little voice.

The cook began to hand them tin cups of cold water. The idiot had a _stupid_ , silly grin on his _stupid_ fucking face.

“You!” Sandor seethed at the cook, accepting the drink.

“Me,” the cook agreed with glee. He hurried with his stupid ladle to refill Sansa and Arya’s drained cups. Sandor slammed back his water and with a reluctant scowl, held out his hand for more.

Sansa began spinning their sad tale; _escaped slaves, you see_ , over her shoulder as she brought water to Water. The cook, already in love, clung to the girl’s every word.

Sandor and Arya glowered their simultaneous, silent threats and let Sansa weave their tale. She played the cook like a lute, lying so prettily. The idiot was wiping tears from his face as she finished.

“So, you see—we really must get into the city.” Sansa looked at the man, large, blue eyes reflecting a genuine need.

The cook motioned for them to sit at the wooden bench and table. It was too early for supper but he seemed to be making an exception for them. He tossed hard hunks of stale bread into wooden bowls and ladled the thin brown stew over it.

Sansa laid a hand atop the cook’s as he placed a bowl in front of her. The man stilled, nearly quivered, and Sandor bit back his instinctive snarl at their touch once Arya’s sharp foot connected with his shin under the table. So he snarled silently at her instead. And Arya, such that she was, snarled right back.

“Would you know a way, my lord? How we could get into the city without being seen?” Sansa pleaded, keeping her voice soft and earnest as silk ribbons in a maiden’s hair.

“Er,” the cook wiped sweat from his brow. “If we knew that, we wouldn’t have been camped out here so long!” He laughed.

Sansa gave him a small nod and a sad smile. She rose, and left to take her uneaten stew to Water.

“Gentle soul, ain’t she?” The idiot cook remarked as his eyes tracked her every graceful move.

Arya’s forehead landed with an unceremonious clunk against the table and she folded her arms above her head. “Enough of this. Just let me _stab_ him,” she grumbled under her breath in an aside to Sandor.

He cocked his head to make sure the cook was still riveted with Sansa’s gentle caretaking (he was), and then tilted his head down towards the wolf girl slumped beside him. “Not yet. Let her keep trying. I think it’s working.”

“Stabbing would be _faster_.”

“Aye. And then we’d have the whole of the Second Sons looking to _us_ for their supper tonight.”

“Ugh,” Arya muttered, barely audible with her face still folded in her arms. “I’m so bored I might stab _myself_ to liven things up.” She pounded a weak fist on the table.

The cook glanced over.

“She’s exhausted,” Sandor explained, straight-faced.

“We all are,” Sansa added as she sat once more. “I fear, if we cannot make it into Meereen, we’re doomed to wander the desert, dependent upon the kindness of strangers until we die out there. I’ll die, parched, starved, never knowing the touch of a man’s gentle hand—”

“Oh, come _on_!” Sandor shouted, dropping his spoon in outrage.

“Sandor!” Sansa’s voice sounded dismayed, but her lips betrayed a slight quirk of amusement she was failing to hide.

“Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?” he grit through his teeth.

“You’re right,” she said with a weary sigh. She turned back to the cook, a terrible glint now in her eyes. “Please forgive my vulgarity, my lord.”

She leaned across the table and tipped his chin.  “But it’s true, isn’t it? It would indeed be a _tragic_ thing to die a virgin in the desert.”

The idiot cook’s mouth dropped open, his chin quivering as he wilted under Sansa’s attentions.

Sansa continued in a sultry voice and _fucking hells_ , the sound made Sandor want to die: “To perish before one is able to blossom, truly, and feel another’s sweet caress between their legs?”

“Sansa!” Sandor roared, unable to take any more. Arya began some very performative false-retching beneath the table to illustrate her feelings on the matter.

Sansa let go of the cook and sat back at her supper with an infuriating little shrug. “Well. I tried. Your turn, Arya.”

Arya sprung up with wicked, impatient glee, daggers already in her hands. “Seven _hells_! Finally!”

Sansa rested her head against Sandor’s shoulder for a brief moment but decided against it when he stiffened, uncomfortable. She shot him a precious and aggrieved look before tucking into her stew, now cooled.

Arya sprang across the table, launching herself bodily at the cook, who squealed like a cut pig as he fell back to the floor.  She started to lace shallow cuts across the man’s flesh, happily slicing his hands, in turn, as his heavy fists came up to block her.

“I don’t know why he couldn’t just do this the easy way,” Sansa commented, before taking another polite spoonful of stew into her mouth.

And so they ate that way: The cook on the floor, cursing; Sandor still spooning stew into his mouth and reeling; Sansa polite and quiet; and Arya cackling as she toyed with cook beneath her knees.

“Shit— _stop_ —blasted buggering _bitch_! Stop, I say! _Gerroff, you_! No—” The cook turned purple with his rage, too slow to swat at Arya’s every slash. “A pulley! A merchant’s pulley!” he gasped.

Arya sat back on his chest, tucking her knives away. She patted his cheek in appreciation.

“Where?” Sansa asked, granting this idiot cook a beatific smile.  

“East wall of the city, one league south from camp.” The cook whimpered, defeated. “Merchants use it to haul crates and wares up ‘n down when the gate—when the gate—”

“Is blockaded due to vulture mercenaries?” Arya snorted.

He nodded. “It’s well-guarded, it is, but Second Sons have left it well alone since they use the lift to get supplies to townsfolk, and we're not villains, mind you, we’re not going to _starve_ them out—”

“No, you just fling the bodies of their sons, the _city guard_ , dead against the walls,” Sandor said dryly.

“I’m not—I don’t— _I’m just a fucking camp cook_!”

Sandor laughed, dry and rasping. “Aye, and a poor one at that. I hope this teaches you to give water to dehydrated little girls when they ask instead of first demanding a peek of their pretty teats, you _lecherous bloody bastard_.” He spat on the ground near the man.

“Thank you for the supper, my lord,” Sansa said to the cook, though her sly blue eyes were locked on Sandor’s as she spoke. The irony of Sandor calling a man a lecherous bastard for leering at Sansa had, evidently, not escaped her notice. 

Arya hoisted herself off the cook and straightened her tunic, her sleeves now spotted with fresh blood. It would dry to brown, Sandor supposed, and no one would be the wiser. For better or worse.

They used the ladle to fill their water skins to the brim, and Sansa even thought to fill the empty honey jar with more water. They sated themselves, fed and watered their mounts, and soon all in their party was full of food and drink. They made for their departure.

Arya, on an afterthought, rushed back into the tent. She laughed as she startled the cook. “Boo!” She cackled, crooking her fingers. She laughed anew when he winced and shot her a dirty scowl.

Keeping an eye on the cook, Arya opened her pack and swept shelves clean, dropping wheels of cheese, dried berries, and whole oranges into the bag.

“Oh, now—that’s— _for fuck’s sake_!” The flustered cook shouted, dismayed.

The odd little thief with her strange, uneven haircut giggled wickedly and darted out again, her pack full to bursting with much of the Second Son’s mercenary company requisitions.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not sure when it happened, but sometime within the past few months this fic surpassed 100 subscribers! im so happy and honored by that, so thank you so much. <3

They waited until the golden fingers of dawn drew over the Second Sons encampment the next morning. In preparation for their reintroduction to polite society, Arya had stolen better vestments for Sansa and Water from an unattended clothesline. Sansa dressed in near-dark, fumbling with the foreign garments.

Before leaving, they led their tired mounts to the haphazard pen containing all the mercenary steeds, and traded them for coin which Arya “liberated” from an officer’s tent. Those poor creatures had plodded through wretched miles of milk-white sand to get them here, and Sansa felt a pang of sadness as she petted their bony noses in parting.

Now, laden with their belongings: Sandor, Sansa, Water, and Arya walked in silence towards the east wall of the city. They crept around the outermost perimeter of the Second Sons encampment, their cautious footsteps like susurrations in the sand; soft as whispers amidst the din of distant snoring.

It was silly, but as they walked, Sansa marveled at her capability to still feel sadness in as small a quantity as “pang.” Compared to how much sadness she’d felt in months, years past—how could something as feeble as a pang still register within her? Surely larger sadnesses, like the grief of her slaughtered family, would take up far too much room for any pang, speck, sliver, splinter, or glimmer of fleeting heartache to otherwise remain visible.

But there it was. A single pang, amidst all the other bellowing internal noise. Perhaps she had it wrong—it wasn’t that the more grief she carried, the less she’d be able to feel other things—it was that the more she felt, the more capable she was of feeling. Her heart grew to make room.

She looked ahead to Sandor’s broad back as it was silhouetted in the faint golden-grey of feeble sunrise. He was carrying the bulk of their baggage, at his insistence, as he led them to the merchant’s pulley. Sansa felt a great deal of things, all at once. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been on the road with Sandor, but it felt like a lifetime. He’d come so far with her.

Water walked a step behind her, his hand lain atop her shoulder as she led him onwards. Arya trudged beside her, fingers laced in the straps of her pack. And like breath filling her flattened lungs, suddenly Sansa _loved_ , all in a rush; heart swelling and bursting with insistence.

She reached for her sister’s hand, ignoring the raised eyebrow Arya shot her way. She didn’t let go until they reached the merchant’s pulley.

The cargo elevator was built from cypress pine beams pounded into a cubic skeleton, with rope railings knotted and wound around each open wall, from post to post. Through the center of the floor and ceiling was a sturdy hempen rope, corded into a thick braid, which wound through a rusted pulley staked into the ground. It clearly was never intended for such wobbly cargo as human passengers, but it looked like it would do the trick.

Sandor gestured for them to stand back as he entered the container alone and stopped near the center. Sansa lay her hand over Water’s still on her shoulder, to bid him still. They watched (well, two of them did anyhow) as Sandor gave a testing yank on the rope and lifted the elevator a few inches from the ground, with him inside it. Though it squeaked with well-worn age, it held Sandor’s weight without complaint. He bounced on the balls of his feet a few times, earning a snort from Arya.

Once he’d examined every inch of the spare space and deemed it safe, he lowered it again, and nodded to them. He stepped out to sling their packs aboard, though Arya hissed when he reached for hers. She climbed in and set it down next to her with great care as the contents rolled and clinked rather conspicuously. Sandor shot her a sneer and she returned the favor in kind, looping a strap around her ankle to stop the unwieldy contents of her bag from pitching it over the edge.

After helping Water get in, Sansa boarded last, reaching up for Sandor’s offered hand as he helped her onto the platform. She stepped close to the center and peered up the hole in the ceiling at the rope that led to Meereen. Her stomach was tight as a fist and knotted with apprehension.

From afar, the city walls hadn’t looked _this_ high. She swallowed with the realization that at the summit, it would be the furthest from the ground she’d ever been.

Sandor tugged the rope before she’d found her balance, and she stumbled when they were naught three inches from the ground. She caught herself with a fistful of Sandor’s tunic. Her heart was pounding; hands gone cold. She let go with a demurring apology.

“You can hold onto me if you need, girl,” he told her. His voice was a soft rasp.

If Arya weren’t present, Sansa would have thrown her arms around his middle and buried her face in his brawny chest, squeezing her eyes shut for the entire ride—but as it was, Sansa merely muttered her feeble gratitude and looped a single finger through his belt loop.

Sandor spat on the squealing pulley so that it might not announce their departure quite so noisily. When he pulled the rope once more, Sansa swayed on her feet but didn’t stumble again. She faced the wall, fixing her eyes on the nape of Arya’s neck as they rose. Arya faced the desert sunrise. She was slouched, arms folded across her middle. She had the gall to _yawn_. Water had an elbow casually hooked around a corner beam and was leaning with his hands folded over his stomach.

The noises of camp and pulley fell away as Sandor heaved them upwards. Soon they were high enough that a gritty, warm wind swooshed in; howling a mild threat of dissent. While it whistled through, Sansa felt it rustle the ends of her hair slightly, and pressed her lips into a grim line at the sensation. She closed her eyes, but it was no use—she could still feel the movement of the elevator as it was jostled by wind.

“Are you alright?” Sandor asked, voice low.

She squeaked a lie of ‘yes’ too brightly to be believed.

“We’re almost there. You’re doing fine, little bird.”

Arya had been looking on during this exchange wearing an impish gleam in her eye that Sansa did not trust one bit.

“Hey, Sansa,” Arya teased. “Look at me.”

Sansa watched in horror as her sister uncrossed her arms and planted her feet wide, and then swayed her body weight from side to side so that it made the entire elevator tremble.

“Arya, _don’t_ ,” Sansa said. “Please!”

Her little sister merely chuckled, and then lept to stand beside Sansa. The floorboards groaned and the entire elevator swayed.

“What’s wrong? Are you frightened?” Arya asked, grinning as she jumped up and down in place.

“ _Yes_!”

“We grew up in the _mountains_!”

“Mountains have _ground_ —Arya, stop it! I’m serious!”

Sandor huffed out an impatient breath through his nose and ignored them as he continued to steadily pull them higher, hand over hand on the rope.

Arya spread her arms out wide and moved her weight from foot to foot until the structure shook.

“ _Arya_! You’ll break something!” Sansa cried.

“No, stupid!”

Sansa was preparing some scathing retort on hubris when, as if by divine providence, the elevator made an alarming lurch to the left. Arya stumbled sideways, but caught herself with preternatural grace before she could fall. One of their packs skidded a few inches across the dusty platform.

“Seven hells,” Arya muttered, and walked to loop her bag around her ankle again.

Sandor gave an exploring tug of the rope, but it yielded nothing in either direction.

They were stuck.

“I _told_ you that you’d break something,” Sansa hissed.

“Oh, come on. It’s a coincidence. I couldn’t have done that.”

“If this is your fault and we plummet to deaths, Arya, _so help me_ —”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You certain of that?” Sandor rasped, peering down the rope hole.

“Yes?” Arya answered, looking altogether uncertain.

He was leaning too far forward for Sansa’s comfort when a muscle in his jaw ticked.

“Arya,” he seethed through gritted teeth, “what’s in your pack?”

“Oh,” said Arya. “Why?”

“Because those poxy bastards are shooting flaming arrows _at the bloody rope_!”

Face blanching, Arya tilted forward to see for herself. “Well.” She straightened. “Shit.”

Sansa anchored one hand around Sandor’s belt as she leaned forward to look for herself. She willed herself to ignore her dizzying nausea. Distantly beneath them, specks of disgruntled soldiers were shaking their fists or drawing fire-tipped arrows through longbows. One of the marksmen had managed to pin the rope to the bricks. A sinister little flame flickered merrily at the thick rope. When she gasped, Sandor hooked a hand around her elbow and pulled her back by it, away from the edge, until her back was to his front.

“You just have to ruin everything, don’t you!?” Sansa spat, shooting a killing look at her little sister. The elevator gave a perilous lurch another inch as the support rope continued to burn. Water moaned lightly, now clinging to his post with both arms.

“Well,” Arya hedged, “at least we’ll die rich?”

“ _We’re already rich!_ ” Sansa yelled.

“In theory!”

“Just _how much_ coin did you steal?” Sandor demanded. Both of his hands were clenched white-knuckle tight around the lift rope.

“I emptied all the officers’ coffers,” Arya replied.

“Are you mad!?” Sansa squealed, her voice pitching high with panic.

“Asks the girl who ate a man’s eyeballs!” Arya shot back with a pointed look. Water’s forehead thumped forward against the post as he dropped his head, quietly cursing the Stark sisters to several sorts of hell.

“Enough!” Sandor called out. “Both of you! Seven hells, I’m si—”

The elevator plummeted. They fell with a stomach-turning weightlessness as the rope flew free. Sandor growled and squeezed tighter, baring his teeth in an animal anger as the rope shredded his palms and slithered through his fingers. Their packs skittered, and Sansa’s hair whipped around her face as she screamed. They dropped.

They jerked to a stop, and the elevator pitched sharply to the side. As their packs tumbled free and began to fall over the edge, Sansa gave a strangled cry of dismay and lept for hers. She dove towards the edge, fingers snatching at the canvas edge of her pack. She realized, much too late to be of any use, that she held on to the rope railing with one hand and her pack with the other. She was left dangling in mid-air.

“Oh, but _I’m_ the mad one,” Arya said archly. “That’s not even the pack with all the gold in it!”

“The book,” Sansa whispered hoarsely into the wind. “The book is in this one.”

Arya didn’t reply. The structure swayed like a sickening pendulum, with them trapped inside it.

Arrows whizzed past Sansa’s shins, some close enough to scorch the leather of her trousers. They plunged into the brick behind her solidly, twanging with impact.

She sucked in a sharp breath as hot, hysterical tears began to leak from her eyes. “ _Sandor_!”

“Little— _busy_ —right now—” came his grunted words. “ _Just—drop it_ —”

“I _can’t_!”

“Toss the pack up to me,” Arya called out in a calm voice. “And then I’ll help you up.”

When Sansa curled her arm as if to toss the bag, it made her other grip on the railing falter. She cried out, curling her fingers tighter.

A shout came from below, and next an arrow scored her thigh. She heard one of the soldiers laugh. They were _toying_ with her.

Her fingers were aching as she clung to the railing. She could feel her grip slipping; the thick rope no match for her cold, clammy hands. “I can’t! I—I can’t! I can’t move!”

“Sansa!” Sandor roared in desperation. “ _You have to!_ ”

“I’m sorry!” she sobbed.

“Sh, sh, shhhh,” said Water. He was nearest her, still clinging to the post, though he eased his grip around it. “I am helping.”

Water knelt with caution. His fingers found the edge of the platform, and tentatively, he let go of the post. He lay on his stomach and slid over inch by agonizing inch until he was directly above Sansa. When his feet reached the rope hole in the center of the platform, he hooked his ankles over the edge. Anchored like that, he reached for her, patting air and platform edge in front of him.

“ _Rope_ ,” Sansa rasped. “I’m—I'm holding onto the railing.”

A broken sound came from Sandor inside the elevator.

Water followed her instructions and waved his hand in front of him until his fingers found the railing. He trailed fingertips along until they met the dip of the rope, pulled low with her weight. He squeezed his hand around hers.

With his other hand he patted down her wrist, and made a pass across her face, just fast enough to track fingertips through the wet trails of tears on her cheeks.

He reached down, straining for her other hand. “Your pack first, yes?”

Sansa nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see it. “ _Yes_ ,” she croaked. “Please.”

He reached down, straining forward as he patted down her spine with one hand. He grasped her tightly by the back of her pants, and lifted with a small grunt. Sansa nearly sobbed at the sensation of relief when some of the pressure from her shoulder joint was eased. With his other hand, he patted down her arm until he could reach no farther than her forearm.

“Just a little higher, _boneka_. Can you do this?”

“I—I think so—”

She lifted the pack a few inches, whimpering when the elevator tilted with her movement.

“Sh, sh, I am helping,” Water assured her.

When she raised the pack enough for him to grasp it and take it from her, renewed shouts came from beneath her dangling legs.

Arrows began to whiz past with vigor, black blurs as they sank into brick and wood all around her.

She swallowed. They wanted to shoot her down. They wanted their gold back.

“Here, Water. Toss it to me,” Arya called out.

Still holding onto the back of her pants with one tight fist, Water flung the bag up and over towards Arya’s general direction. There was a scuffling noise, a thud, and then the unmistakable sound of canvas slapping into open palms.

“Got it,” Arya said.

Water reached down and fisted his other hand in the back of her pants, and grunted with effort as he attempted to pull her dead weight back into the elevator. He grimaced, until Sansa’s free hand shot up to scrabble at the platform. She flattened her palm and pushed, and with Water’s yanking, they both hoisted until she was able to lift her knee high enough to reach the platform edge. Arrows continued to fly.

“This is a mess,” Water puffed. Sweat beaded at his temples.

Sansa gave a broken, sobbing laugh.

 _Snik_ —

“ _Ah_!” she cried out as an arrow sank into the back of her thigh. Finally, Water pulled her aboard, and out of the line of fire.

Water patted her until his fingers knocked the arrow protruding from her flesh, and she gasped in pain.

“Come, come,” he said, and pulled her to sit upright. He put one hand on her thigh so the arrow was between his splayed fingers, while grasping the shaft with his other hand. He pressed his palm down on her skin.

“No,” Sansa sobbed.

“Yes,” Water said. He ripped the arrow free in one swift movement. She couldn’t help the strangled little moan that ripped from her throat.

Sansa crawled away from the edge on her hands and knees until she felt far enough away to be safe. She crumpled and cried noisily. Water crawled next to her, patting her face, her back, her hair, and making soothing sounds. He even pushed some of her sweaty hair out of her face.

She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, _Water_ —” Sansa cried, and rained kisses all over his face.

“Ready to start moving whenever you’re finished, then—” Sandor growled. “Take your— _bloody_ time —”

Sansa looked up and gasped at what she saw. Water may have saved her, but Sandor had saved them _all_. He was the reason they hadn’t fallen—he’d caught the rope with his bare hands, and had held on for dear life, steadying them while Sansa flung herself off the edge like an idiot. The rope was stained red around his abraded palms; his fingers slippery with blood. An arrow jutted out just below his hip, well, from the side of his—

“Sandor got an arrow in the arse,” Arya said proudly. “Didn’t even make a peep.”

Sansa’s hand flew to cover her mouth, as she stared on in horror. “Sandor, I’m so sor—”

“Not—your fault—” he grated. “But I can’t keep—”

“Go,” Sansa said. “I’m okay.”

With considerable effort, Sandor raised the rope. Keeping his feet firmly planted and his eyes fixed on his task, he clenched his teeth and pulled. He could only yank a short length at a time, and when he did, he would loop the excess rope around his elbow so they didn’t drop more.

Sansa extracted herself from Water and crawled forward, stopping whenever the elevator lurched upwards.

“Sansa,” her sister warned.

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “I’m _okay_.”

She wasn’t.

Sansa stopped when she reached Sandor’s feet. She looked up. He was so _powerful_.

Shakily, she raised one knee. She braced herself with both palms flat on the platform floor. When she worked herself to a squatting position, she reached forward, wrapping her hands around one of Sandor’s calves. And then, hand over trembling hand, she raised herself up, using Sandor to climb to a standing position. She felt the hard muscle of his thigh, and dug her fingers in, unselfconscious that one of her hands was on the inside of his leg; just below his groin.

She was careful of the arrow, but once she was standing in front of him, her palm passed over his taut lower belly, over the musculature of his hips, towards his back, and up, up, until she could pull herself flush against him and wrap her arms around his waist. She buried her face in his middle, and next, she wept.

“ _Book better—be worth it_ —” he panted. They lurched upwards another foot.

She rested her chin on the center of his chest to look up at him. “It is. I promise.”

“ _I—trust—you—_ ” he bit out.

Sansa could look above them to see the city gate’s edge, where there were locking beams to secure the elevator in place. A drop of blood from his hands splattered on her upturned face. She wiped it off with her shoulder, leaving a stain on her newly-stolen loose linen tunic.

“Sandor,” she began quietly, low enough so that only he could hear. “I lov—”

“ _No_!” he barked. “Not— _now_ —”

He hazarded a quick glance down at her, and at Sansa’s hurt expression, he amended: “I’ll—drop us—” he rasped. “If you—say _that_ — now—”

She tightened her squeeze around him, and pressed her watery smile into Sandor’s chest; where no one could see it, but where he could feel it.

She loosened her hold on him while he bent for one final heave, and then—with a jarring thud of wood onto metal—they’d reached the top. The top of the merchant’s cargo pulley was just above their heads.

Without the looping tow rope to keep them steady, they swung at the edge of the city gate; just beyond the scaffolding that would bring them into Meereen.

“Arya,” Sandor grunted.

She nodded, tacitly understanding his unspoken instruction.

Arya nimbly climbed the corner post nearest to the ledge. She wrapped her legs around the beam and leaned out with both arms for the lever that would release the locking mechanism. It was just out of her grasp. She pulled back, and then forward, and back again, until they were rocking closer. Sansa’s stomach roiled.

Finally, Arya swung them close enough to grasp the lever, and she pulled down on it with all her weight. Beams shot out from the scaffolding; scraping the bottom of the platform as they locked into place. They stopped moving.

Arya hopped down and gathered their packs, tossing all of them (save her own, of course) off the elevator and onto the pounded-smooth sandstone. She helped Water up next, and led him out with one gentle hand between his shoulder blades. The fine daggers on her hips glinted in the hot morning light.

From up here, Sansa could see that they were at the very top of the city—they crested a labyrinthine man-built hill, and beneath them, bustling Meereen unfurled like an ornate carpet.

“You get out first.” Sandor appeared exhausted, resting his face on the inside of his his upper arm. He hadn’t let go of the rope; and with the blood, it looked as if his arms were strung up above his head.

“Can I say it now?” she asked, not letting go of him.

He snorted. “No, little bird. Not yet.”

She let go with a nod, and wobbled on wooden legs off the elevator. She walked out onto blessedly flat and available ground. The bright sun assailed her skin and she felt warm blood dribble down the back of her leg from the arrow wound.

She took one step. She faltered. She took one more. She collapsed to her knees. And then, she cried. Messily.

Arya sighed, loud and annoyed.

Sandor was just behind her. He tried helping her up even though his hands were now clumsy from injury and strain. “Can you not walk!? Did the arrow—”

“I’m alright,” she sobbed.

Arya planted her hands on her hips. “Sansa, how can you be _that_ afraid of heights? You’ve _killed_ people!”

“Kill _you_ —next!” she blubbered, while Sandor helped her to stand. His hands were claw-like, immobilized from squeezing the the rope so tightly for so long.

Mindless of the salty tears stinging his wounds, he tried brushing them away with the backs of his fingers, but got frustrated with ineptitude and quit.

“I made it worse,” he scowled. “You look as if you wear war paint.”

Realizing there must still be a smear of his blood on her forehead from earlier, she cried harder.

“Oh, nicely done, Hound!”

“Shut up, wolf girl.”

Sansa clung to Sandor, crying until her self-indulgent swooning was rudely interrupted by him pushing away from her. He crossed towards the elevator again.

" _Bloody whoresons_!" he bellowed down.

He reached a hand behind himself, struggling to grasp the arrow stuck in his—well, from his—

"Here. I'll do it," Arya said.

She planted one hand on the Hound's backside and wrapped the other around the arrow. Face impassive, she plucked it free while Sandor hissed in a breath and held it. He exhaled through his nose.

Arya tapped the bloodied point on Sandor's chest. "Here you go."

Grave-faced, he nodded his thanks.

And then, in a tone as grave as his expression, he said: "Wolf girl, I'll give you three coppers if you shit in the elevator before I cut the rope and send the blasted thing back down."

Arya, damn her, immediately started unlacing her breeches. She tucked her shirt hem up under her chin as she turned from them and walked towards the elevator.

"No!" Sansa stopped just short of stomping her foot. " _No_!"

"They tried to kill you!" Sandor said.

Sansa glanced back at him—"They tried to kill all of us!" When she looked back, Arya was already bare-bottomed and squatting inside the elevator.

"Arya! _Honestly_!" Sansa cried. Though absolutely scandalized and embarrassed—she started to laugh despite herself. "You don't even _need_ three coppers! You're rich now, remember?"

"It's the principle of the matter," Arya informed her loftily. "I would've done this for free."

"Well, hells, had I known that I would have pushed for a better bargain," Sandor said, deadpanning.

"Next time," Arya assured him.

Sansa groaned and buried her face into palms, stifling her aggrieved laughter. She knew what they were doing—knew they were just trying to get a rise out of her and make her laugh. And gods bless them for it.

"I'm not sure what's a more peculiar sight," came an amused voice behind them—

All amusement forgotten, Sansa stiffened. Dread trickled down her spine like ice.

The voice explained, "Either the sight of a highborn lady prepared to shit in public..."

Sansa turned.

"Or," Tyrion continued, "the sight of Sansa Stark _genuinely_ laughing."

He smiled down at her from the top of the stairs. “Hello, wife.”


End file.
